LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

®|np ©up^rig^t l|u.i-A-'^. 

Shelf _-4-)i^ci^ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Prorsus R 



RORSUS X\ETRORSUS. 



BY 

DENTON J. SNIDER. 



3U2^77 ^y 



ST. LOUIS: 

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 

210 PINE ST. 

1892. 



■•V 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1892, 

By DENTON J. SNIDER, 
in the Office of Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C. 



/^-3?;/^ 



-JONES PRINTING CO., 212 PINE ST., ST. L0UI3. 



TABLE OF COJVTUJSTTS. 



PRELUDE — POLYDORE and AURORA 5 

Part First— Ecce Roma. 

Book First — In Urbem. 

1 . Ultimus Eomanorum 25 

2. Koma Carissima 32 

3. The Eoman Holiday 44 

4. Found 48 

5. The Open Secret 50 

6. August Roma and Roman Augusta 55 

7. On the Pincio 60 

8. In a Roman Wineshop 64 

9. The Roman Cupbearer = 6Q 

10. The Goddess of the Capitol 70 

11. Nature and Art at Rome 76 

12. On the Tiber 81 

13. The Old Titan at Rome 8Q 

14. Those Tell-tales the Muses 89 

15. A Little Eoman Olympus 92 

16. Anticipation 98 

17. Art and Life 101 

18. Experience 104 

19. Palingenesis 106 

iii 



iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Book Second — Ex Urbe. 

1. Confession 108 

2. Vision of Castaly 109 

3. The New Prometheus 112 

4. Metempsychosis 115 

5. An Old Legend Ke-incarnated 120 

6. Tiber and Arethusa 124 

7. The Two Muses ^ 125 

8. The Two Streams 125 

9. Looking Backward 126 

10. The Sigh of Hellas in Rome 126 

11. Art 128 

12. The Great Fall 128 

13. A Translation 129 

14. An Oration 130 

15. Premonition 131 

16. The Two Guides 131 

17. The Two Cities 131 

18. Retrorsus 132 

19. Prorsus 132 

Part Second -— Epigrammatic Voyage. 
Book First — Italy, 

INTERMEZZO —PASTORALE « c 185 

Book Second — Hellas. 

Maid of Athens 238 

Hymn to Pallas 243 



Polydore and Aurora. 
Prceludium Matutinum, 

Weary, unwilling, the eyelids droop, though 
slumber has left them ; 
Polydore rises alone, sits on his couch with a 
sigh ; 
Long he has wandered in hope, pursuing a vision 
of splendor, 
Filled is his heart with a dream, whether he 
wake or he sleep. 
Soon he sets forth in the dark for the hills, for 
the tops of the mountains, 
Toil^ which wearies the world, brings him his 
only repose. 
Troubled he is with an image, sweet image that 
drives him to wander, 
Polydore is not too old, is not too young for 
the quest. 

(5) 



6 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Up the rough pathway he climbs, which leads him 
away from his cabin, 
Down he hastes to the dell, through the wild 
gloom of the glen, 
Forward he steps full-hearted, his lot is ever to 
wander, 
Polydore's locks are still brown, shot through 
with silvery strands. 
Dawn is dreamilj^ touching the farthest tops of 
the mountains, 
Which, not fully awake, drowsily rise from the 
earth 
In the distance ; like giants they rise and shake 
off their slumber, 
With a dull droop of the head vanishing into 
mists 
For a moment, but at a wink they spring back to 
twilight: 
Polydore, young in his dreams, walks out of 
darkness to dawn. 
Longing in minstrelsy sweet, and lingering over 
his journey, 
He will hum a low note tuned to a shell in iiis 
hand; 
Images swarm on his path to the heights and 
mock all his senses, 
List ! his voice too they touch, tipping his 
words with their wings : 



POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 7 

** Lovely Aurora I I see tliee arise from thy bed 
in the Orient, 
With the stroke of thy hand moving the cur- 
tain aside; 
White and slender thy fingers are laid on that 
curtain nocturnal, 
Hanging down from the skies, faintly ingrained 
with light ; 
Through the break that hath cloven the night, I 
gain sweetest glimpses 
Of a maiden that stirs, clad in the white robe 
of rest, 
On a bed that is made of the snow-flake or down 
of the eider. 
And is rocked to a hymn sung by the winds of 
the hills. 
But now while I am peering with curious eye to 
behold thee. 
Out with a bound thou art sprung, maiden of 
mildness and grace, 
And in thy soft-flowing garment thou sweepest 
across the high Heavens, 
Robed in the drapery fair of the Immortals of 
old. 
Goddess thou art, I adore thee, I know thy shape 
and thy movement. 
Now appearing to me, mortal yet dear to thy 
glance. 
Pour in my wandering soul a nectarean drop of 
thy beauty, 



8 PBOESUS BETBOBSUS. 

As thou revealest thyself yonder amid the mad 
stars 
Throwing their torches unnumbered into thy 
calm mellow lustre, 
Till they, lost in thy train, seem to have shot 
from the sky. 
Up the horizon thou movest a queen, in silence 
majestic, 
No one heareth thy step ere thy sweet presence 
be felt; 
Where thou passest is light, but not the fierce 
glare of Apollo, 
Mild is thy lustre as love that is unknown to 
itself." 

Polydore stopped for a breath, how strong and 
swift were his heart-beats. 
Forging the thought of his soul into the 
musical word ! 
Soon he felt lonely, he could not endure his own 
company voiceless. 
For to another he sang, could he but sing to 
himself. 
Deeply he sighed for what was behind, but he 
ever looked forward ; 
Strange how future and past mingled their 
strains in his song ! 
Was it Aurora he saw, or was it the thought of 
another 



FOLYDOEE AND AUBOBA. 9 

Who had slipped into her shape, as he addressed 
her on high? 

** Oh how youthful thy glance as coyly thou 
climbestthe Heavens ! 
Blushes start in thy cheek, roses are wound in 
thy hair, 
Innocence moves in thy light, yet tinged with a 
red ray of passion ; 
Maiden divinely young, thine is the gift of the 
Gods. 
When horrid Night has long blinded the Hours 
beneath her dark mantle, 
On thy lover thou look'st, then all at once 
there is light ; 
Every morning for him thou hast the fresh face 
of the flowers. 
Dipped in Castalian dew, breathing Elysian 
perfume ; 
And from thine eyes there flows through the 
world a shy subtle radiance : 
'Tis the love in thy look, deepest and first of 
the heart. 
Thine is that first love, breaking its way out the 
soul to the senses. 
With the might of the God, who in the heart 
builds a shrine 
All to himself, and thence he divinely doth pour 
out his splendors, 



10 PBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. 

Newly begetting the man, newly creating the 
world. 
First love knoweth the mortal but once, while 
thine is forever, 
Born each morning anew for the dear spouse at 
thy side ; 
O, the hard law for us of the wretched race of 
Terrestrials, 
Draughts repeated though sweet, lose of their 
flavor divine; 
Once, only once can be felt the delicious surprise 
of the senses. 
Once the rapture of soul, when we know not 
what we do.'' 

In the swoon of his feeling pale Polydore sank 
into silence. 
Back he looked on his path ; has he left some- 
thing behind? 
Softly his glances were flushed with the rays 
of a fond recognition, 
See, on the gloom of the night flashes the hope 
of the Dawn. 
O Polydorus, art thou, mad imortal, now wooing 
a Goddess? 
Hush, his voice has come back, as he looks 
into the East: 
" Say, for whom is this love of the maid, the 
whole world overflowing. 



POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. H 

Every new morn in a bliss kindled down under 
the sea? 
For Tithonus, happy Tithonus, old man and a 
mortal ; 
Him caresses the maid daily abloom in her 
youth, 
Where he lies on his couch far beyond the round 
rim of the ocean, 
Till Aurora in fright upward unwillingly 
springs. 
Roused by the rumble and roar far away, on the 
breath of the darkness 
Borne to her bed of repose, startling ambrosial 
hours. 
Hark I 'tis the whirl of the wheels, and the stamp 
of the steeds of Apollo, 
In a chariot of flames bringing the bold-eyed 
day. 
'Hasten, Aurora, announce with thy torch his 
coming to mortals. 
Circle the globe with thy wings, night shall 
restore thee to love. 
Here I await thy return o'er the sea in soft fleeces 
of slumber ; 
Rouse up the work of the world, heralding 
light and its task; 
Round the whole earth thou must pass, my em- 
brace must be earned by thy journey, 
Parted we are for a day, won by thy duty is 
love.' 



12 PBOBHUS BETBOBSUB. 

Up she leaps from the couch, and glances afar to 
the westward, 
Into the darkness she peers, that lies out- 
stretched on the globe 
Like a dragon ; then lifting the train of her robe 
of pure twilight, 
Softly she treads on the hills, steps from a top 
to a top. 
Till she hath filled the whole arch of the sky to 
the bending horizon 
With her Olympian folds waving soft silence of 
light; 
As if a statue might suddenly rise from a mount- 
ain of marble 
Into the welkin above, there to be seen as a 
God. 
Forth she is ready to fly, but turns in the pang of 
departure, 
Gives a last look at her love, yet with a hope 
on her face; 
Many complaints she sighs on the night wind 
about separation. 
She embraces those limbs furrowed and trem- 
bling with age. 
And she strokes with her delicate hand the white 
locks of Tithonus, 
Kissing to smoothness his brow broken in ridges 
by time. 
Ib it true that Love can be kindled by snows of 
the winter? 



POLYDOBE AND AUEOEA. 13 

Seeks it to slake its fierce thirst at the cool 
fountain of age ? 
Gentle tears fill her eyes during all of the hours 
of absence, 
Weep a soft dew on the earth till every flower's 
deep heart, 
Touched with a sisterly grief, is filled with a drop 
of pure sorrow; 
Heaven's star-lit dome loses itself in her 
glance, 
Constellations swoon out of their place at the 
touch of her finger. 
And in her light-flowing veil sapphires she 
culls from the skies. 
Yet, Aurora, yet never wert thou by the day 
overtaken. 
Far in advance of each sun is thy fleet flight 
from embrace, 
Time thou hast left in the race, thou outsteppest 
the steeds of Apollo, 
Who from his car overhead smites us to age 
with his beams. 
But, O lily-crowned victress, immortal thou art 
and a Goddess, 
Youth sits throned in thy cheek, scattering 
blossoms eterne. 
In the evening thou bathest thy waist in the 
springs of the Ocean, 
Then every morn at this hour thou art arisen 
new-born." 



14 PBOBSUS BBTBOBSUS, 

Polydore ceased; he sat down on a stone, the 
first stone of a temple, 
Smote with his staff in the soil, out of the 
ground peeped a face, 
That had been hewn in the ages antique by the 
hand of a sculptor. 
Formed to a lore in his heart out of the Parian 
block. 
Long it had lain in the earth, its body immortal 
with beauty. 
Slept the long sleep of its night veiled from 
the look of the world, 
Till now Polydore wandering happens along on 
his journey, 
Strikes but a blow with his staff, gone is the 
magical spell, 
Out of the grave uprises a Goddess to glad 
resurrection. 
Still with the smile of her youth brought 
down from Hellas of old. 
What, thou too on the earth! and takest thy 
shape in my presence ! 
Polydore rose in his joy, stood on the stone of 
the fane. 
Lofty Aurora appeared to his vision transfigured 
to marble 
Out of the twilight afar falling in refluent 
folds. 
But when again he looked at the sky, the face of 
the morning 



POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 15 

Told of a change, a decay, plaintively tuning 
his words: 

<* Goddess 1 thy lover Tithonus is not only old, 
but a mortal, 
Older he grows each day, burnt is his flesh by 
the suns 
Till it is crisp to the touch, and soon must drop 
down into ashes, 
When by endowment divine there will be left 
him his voice. 
Once he too was a youth along the green banks 
of Scamander, 
Fairest of shepherds he grew, piping on Ideean 
heights ; 
'Mid the daughters of swains he passed a sunny 
existence, 
With them leading the dance over the emerald 
slopes. 
Haunting meadows and streams sweet nymphs 
ever wooed him, 
All their love was in vain 'gainst the high rival 
who came. 
For it was thou. As thy light-stepping chorus 
sped over the hill-tops 
Once long ago in a laugh to the Dardanian 
vale. 
Thou beheldest him first, and thereafter ahead of 
the morning, 



16 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Softly on tiptoe thou cam'st out of the East 
with a blush, 
Thou didst slip up behind and peer over the 
high top of Ida, 
Gaze on the shepherd asleep down in the valley 
below ; 
Kapt in a dream of thy love mid his dew-laden 
herd he was lying, 
There thou didst join thy white arms round 
the fresh loins of the youth, 
Daintily lift him and lap him in slumberous folds 
of thy twilight, 
Bear him away round the world over Oceanus' 
streams. 
Thither ye fled, ye lovers antique, and dwelt in 
your rapture, 
Which, O Goddess, still gleams into the world 
from thy face, 
But the years the mortal pursued and plowed up 
his forehead, 
Wisdom's harvest they sowed, but with the 
tares of Old Age. 
Pale grew the cheek of Tithonus, and the light 
curl on his temples, 
Bitterly frosted all through, like a lone icicle 
hung. 
Weak is Old Age, but he creeps on the frolic- 
some days of the youthful, 
While in the garden they sport mid the red 
roses of life, 



FOLYDOBE AND AUBORA. 17 

Fair Tithoniis grew old , yet he had a young love 
in his bosom, 
Which immortal will be when the frail body is 
dropped ; 
And he still has a voice outpouring the notes of 
new music, 
Hymning a passionate strain to his Aurora the 
fair ; 
Song holds the essence immortal of love, where- 
in all its fervor 
Out of the heart is expressed into the heart by 
the word. 
'Tis his voice that she loves, to his voice her soul 
is still clingino^, 
Though the rose leaf hath dropped out of his 
cheek to the ground; 
Voice immortal to youth immortal in them is 
wedded. 
Like has found like in its love, Homer has 
married his Muse. 
For the voice of Tithonus still sings with the 
warmth of a lover, 
And sweet accents of song fall from his 
bodiless lips, 
Like the low tender whispers of Zephyrus, 
wooer of evening. 
Breaths that stray on the air, melting to 
musical sighs. 
Age, while it calms with its wisdom, has filled up 
the deeps of the passion, 

2 



18 FB0B8US BETB0B8US. 

Shallow the vessel that seethes wild at one 
touch of the flame. 
Still a young shepherd he is, and sings a fresh 
song to the maiden, 
Voice untouched by decay changes old years 
into new. 
Poet Tithonus, old man and a mortal," cried 
Polydorus, 
*' Youth, a Goddess, each night breathes golden 
dreams on thine eyes, 
And each morn to her task she springs from thy 
couch with caresses, 
Weaving the kiss of her lips into the word of 
thy soul. 
Thou dost speak at the touch of thy passion, that 
speech sings forever, 
Sings in the soul of the maid which she rays 
out of her looks. 
As she now meets me and passes in haste to 
return to her lover, 
There to drink the full song which I hear 
lisped in her train. 
Old man, thine is the gift of the Gods, their best 
gift to mortals, 
Word that never grows old, treasured in maid- 
enly heart, 
Voice that ever is fresh in the dews of a morning 
eternal. 



POLTDOBE AND AUBOBA, 19 

Thine is the gift of the Gods — share me thy 
heavenly gift, 
Share me the love of Aurora, the beautiful, 
youthful forever, 
Thou art a mortal, art dead — pity me here 
still alive. 
Me a mortal like thee, still chasing the hope and 
the passion, 
Share me thy gift of the Gods,— » share me the 
youth of the world 
Which though linked to thy body of death, is 
wooed by us living, 
Share me the beautiful one" — Polydore 
looked, she was gone; 
Garish Day had driven her off with a bold stare 
of sunlight. 
As on the summits above Phoebus was mount- 
ing his car. 
She had fled out of sight, the lone minstrel was 
left in the valley. 
With a dream in his heart nourishing pas- 
sionate strains; 
Still the fair vision was humming all day in his 
thoughts as he wandered. 
Tuning to music their dance as they would 
leap into words. 
Like the youths of the chorus who print a melod- 
ious movement 



20 PB0B8U8 BETROBSUS, 

Clear on Parnassian air, winding about on the 
slopes. 
But she had fled from him, hastening forth to the 
couch of Tithonus, 
Ghostly old man of the East, long ago bodily 
dead. 
But who is wedded to youthful Aurora, the fair, 
the immortal : 
Polydore, hope for the maid, she will to-mor- 
row return. 
Thou must catch her spirit's still shadow the 
moment it passes, 
Fix it forever in lines drawn round her fugitive 
form ; 
Look again at her statue that once stood up in 
this temple, 
Mark how swift is her flight, though in eternal 
repose. 
Fleet Aurora will yield up her speed to the hand 
of a mortal, 
But an Olympian net over her shape he must 
cast, 
As the form of fair Aphrodite was caught by the 
Artist, 
Holding her helplessly fast in his invisible 
toils; 
For not even a Goddess can break out the net of 
her bondage. 



POLYDOBE AND AUBOBA. 21 

If she once has been seized, prisoned in beauti- 
ful lines. 
Haste, Polydorus, speed thy way to the lands of 
Aurora, 

Over the rim of the sea into the home of the 
Past, 
Go, now brmg her thy living love, as once did 
Tithonus, 

Go, take captive her form, then she forever is 
thine. 



PART FIRST. 

Ecce Roma. 



(23) 



i00h Jfirst. 

In Urbem. 



I. Ultimus Romano rum. 

What can it be in that face which couples so 
Great and so Little — 
Often I ask of myself moving amid Roman 
crowds. 
Many a look that flits through the streets has the 
shadowy semblance 
Of a something divine which was alive long 
ago. 
Many a form is an echo like that of a dim distant 
trumpet 
Heralding glories past sunk in the flesh of to- 
day. 

(25) 



2Q PBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. 

List the lament on the air from a swift spectral 
face that I followed 
Through the noise of the crowd, out of the 
market to church, 
Over the Tiber and up to the Pincio, eluding me 
always 
Till the Pantheon's spell both of us held face 
to face : 
** Seek me no further, stop! on this spot I yield 
up my secret 
Which for centuries long I have been bearing 
in pain; 
Here is the fane where anciently mingled the 
Gods and the Heroes, 
Built in the form of the world holding within 
it the world. 
See ! it surrounds thy gaze like the high everlast- 
ing horizon. 
Arches itself to a dome bearing thee up to the 
skies. 
Everywhere it is telling of greatness — of Great 
Men who dwelt here, 
And are dwelling here still — hark to the voice 
on these walls. 
Deem it not fancy — oft now in Rome thou wilt 
see an old Hero, 
Or it may be a God, clad in the shapes of the 
low; 
He has returned once more to the Earth to serve 
out his penance, 



ECCE BOMA. 27 

For the sin of his deed which he had wrought 
here before ; 
Still he could not avoid the burden and pang of 
the action ; 
Destiny forced him to do, driving him forward 
to pain. 
Ah, the price of the Great Deed is guilt, and 
guilty the Hero 
Pays the price of his act in the fierce torment 
of flesh." 
Suddenly over his face rolled a wave from the 
ocean of sadness 
Which he bore in his breast ; all of his frame 
was a storm 
Only a moment; strong like a Roman, he put 
down his heart-throbs. 
When again he began sternly his soul to con- 
fess : 
" Out with the word — to be great in this world 
doth mean to be guilty, 
Suffering follows from guilt, as the red light- 
ning of law. 
Mark him — the Great Man never is .happy, 
never ofPenseless, 
His endowment is Will dripping with innocent 
blood, 
Will is always the smiter, assailing some right of 
existence. 
Justice then comes with her doom, weaponed 
with penalty dire. 



28 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Hercules, paradised now in thy legends, Olym- 
pian Hero, 
Stalwart thine arm was indeed, burdens to 
heap on thy back ; 
What did it boot thee in toil to have cleared the 
wild earth of its monsters? 
Each great action of thine was a whole world- 
ful of pain. 
O Bellerophon ! thou for thy country and race 
wert the slayer 
Of the death-breathing fiend that from the 
Orient sprang; 
Speak the reward of thy action? Madness — 
within thy torn bosom 
Nemesis turned loose the fiends which in the 
fight thou hadst slain. 
And the mightiest one of you all, O Julius Caesar, 
Whb didst snatch the old world out of its 
funeral pyre, 
Where it was burning to ashes, and bowl it down 
into the present. 
Who with thy conquest didst build far in the 
North the great dyke. 
Bulwark of might and of light set against the 
barbarous deluge — 
What was thy meed but thy death followed by 
taunts of all Time ? 
Once I saw thee standing just here, the soul of 
this temple. 



ECCK BOMA. 29 

And the world seemed too small holding the 
arch of thy brow. 
Daily the Sun would peep through the eye of 
this lofty Pantheon 
Thee once more to behold, greatest of all he 
had seen." 
Slowly the spirit looked up to the radiant dome 
of the temple, 
Whence the light seemed to fall down from the 
eye of the God ; 
Placing himself in the sheen, he was lit through 
and through with the sunfire. 
Out of the flames he yet spoke, dropping his 
head with a si^h : 
** Still the Hero after his deed must lapse into 
lowness, 
Thousands of years he endures ere he is 
cleansed of his wrong, 
Suffering is his red badge, alas ! the great action 
is guilty, 
He probation must pass smitten for ages with 
pangs. 
Till his spirit is purged of its guilt and Nemesis 
sated. 
Then a Hero again he may appear on the 
earth." 
" Who art thou, specter," I cried, «« how speed- 
ing through time to this moment ! 
How escaping that law which even Rome could 
not break ! " 



30 PBOBSUS BETIiOBSUS, 

But he pointed his set ghostly finger to pedestals 
empty 
Where the Great Men of Rome anciently stood 
with the Gods: 
" Ah, to be great ! it is to be guilty — it is to be 
wretched, 
Though the Hero be borne to the Olympus of 
Fame." 
More he seemed willing to speak when fell a 
moment of silence. 
Lips he moved in the sheen, but not a sound 
could be heard ; 
Like a glimmer he flashed up into the sky of the 
temple, 
Lost in the pour of the beams falling down out 
of the sun, 
With the God he rose on the sheen to the top of 
Pantheon, 
Still I peered in the light, but he had vanished 
beyond. 
Insuppressible sorrow steals o'er me, it crushes 
me downward, 
All the Fates of hoar Time break in at once 
to my heart, 
Pain strikes every sense of the body, poignant 
with pity 
For the Heroes of old, guilty in deeds that 
were great. 
This is the price of thy action, O Roman — 
penalty lasting 



ECCE BOMA. 31 

Laid by the world upon thee doing the work 
of the world; 
Still thou didst not shrink from thy task, from 
the guilt of thy grandeur, 
Sad as sorrow itself, sadder it is than the 
grave. 
Tears flow down the hard stones at the tragedy 
born of existence, 
Ever the man has to do that which undoes him 
at last. 
Even to live is a deed which has in the end to be 
paid for, 
Birth is but an old debt which must be ' 
canceled by death. 
Slowly I droop on a column, I am but a drop of 
pure pity, 
In this presence is man only the fall of a tear; 
For a moment I swoon, then faintly I rise from 
my heart-ache, 
Out the Pantheon I grope into the sunshine of 
Rome. 
Mount, O Phoebus, thy car, and fling thy light 
from the Heavens, 
Still to-day there is joy if but to Nature we 
turn; 
Still to-day there is life, see it here festooning 
these ruins. 
Green is even decay ; up, let us pluck the new 
flower. 



32 PBOBSUIS BETBOBSUS. 

2. Roma Carissima. 

*' Tell me why do you daily run off to ancient 
museums, 
Or to some temple, of which merely a column 
now stands? 
Yesterday why did you gaze so long at the pillar 
of Trajan? 
Just as two men might converse both of you 
stood face to face. 
All my life I have seen it without ever hearing its 
language ; 
There I brushed you and passed, but you would 
never take note. 
What do you see in all these marble relics and 
ruins? 
Is a Goddess of stone sweeter than woman with 
life? 
Let me go with you to-day and look with your 
look at the statues. 
As they rise in long rows held upon pedestals 
high; 
I would see what you see and know what you 
know in this city, 
Surely some secret there is which you have 
kept from my heart." — 
So spake the .maiden of Rome just when in the 
morning I started 
To the task of the day, searching for treasures 
antique , 



EGCE BOMA, 33 

Which have still to be dug from the ages by 
' every new-comer : 
'Twas not the first time she showed jealousy 
of the old Gods. 
What could I answer but " Come, you shall enter 
the magical circle 
That you may see what I see, that I may hear 
what you say ! " 
Eapidly then we went down the street and over 
the Tiber, 
Past the high palaces' pomp, through the hoar 
ruins of Eome ; 
All the city rose up from the earth and became 
but one temple, 
That was the temple of Time which he had 
built for himself. 
Soon we came to a forest of columns that led to 
an entrance, 
Where we entered great walls filled with an old 
sculptured world. 
Zeus we saw, the ruler of Gods, but the father 
of mortals. 
Parent ever below, sovereign ever above ; 
Well might we blench at the thunder-bolt's glare 
that leaped from his forehead, 
Still underneath we felt love softening lines in 
his lips. 
Juno was there, and proved in her look she was 
queen of the Heavens, 

3 



34 PB0B8U8 BETBOBSUS. 

For no mortal man ever to love her would 
dare; 
King Apollo was striding in stone to the slaughter 
of darkness, 
Swift as the gleam of the Sun, fixed though 
he stood on his feet ; 
Venus was also present in many a posture allur- 
ing, 
As the Goddess of Love she had a room to 
herself ; 
Vast was the throng of the deities coming from 
Earth and Olympus, 
Ocean, Eiver and Nymph, down to the goat- 
footed Faun, 
Everlasting assenably of Gods transfigured to 
marble, 
As they gathered once, called by the voice of 
the bard. 
When they all were summoned up to the Olym- 
pian palace, 
There to take sides in the war over the city of 
Troy. 
Many high mortals also belonged to the sacred 
assembly, 
Who have done here below nobly the deeds of 
the Gods, 
Or who have suffered for others with a divinity's 
patience, 
Who have resisted fierce Fate though they have 
sunk in the fight. 



ECCE BOM A. 35 

See ! great Hercules yonder reclines — he is 
legless and headless. 
Still in his trunk you behold human becoming 
divine ; 
Ariadne forsaken has fallen asleep in her sorrow, 
But her dream has restored sweetly the lover 
she lost ; 
Pericles grandly is here, still speaking for war in 
his helmet, 
Man of the people he is, for he is man of the 
Gods ; 
And beside him through all the centuries lingers 
Aspasia, 
They still together remain, still they shall love 
in these halls. 
Zeus Laocoon with his fair children is linked in 
the serpent, 
Which has caught him like Fate with all his 
beautiful world. 
And great throes of despair that burst from the 
pain of the marble 
Herald the doom of the time, tragic are also 
the Gods ; 
Scarce can I keep back the sigh at the death of 
the beautiful ages. 
Petrified life of the world, still it is living in 
stone. 
Silent passes the maiden through long white lines 
of fair idols. 



36 PBOBSUS BETROBSUS. 

Looking with joy on the shapes, yet too afraid 
of her joy; 
Wearied with vision at last, she began to speak 
of the Gods there, 
Standing in presence of Zeus who from his 
bust gave the nod : 
"Oft I have heard they once were alive in a 
world of their glory; 
In old times they could talk, when they were 
worshiped as Gods. 
Here in Rome they had altars and shrines, were 
entreated in prayer. 
Though they be now of rock; heathen was 
then all the land. 
Blessings they sent by day and by night, in 
peace and in warfare ; 
Then they ruled the whole world, they were 
the Kings of the Kings. 
But there came a great war — the Gods fought — 
and in it were beaten ; 
When they were thrown out the sky, fell they 
a stone to the earth." 
Then she touched the cold marble just with the 
tip of her finger, 
But withdrew it at once when she had felt 
the dead chill. 
'* Oh these people of stone, how cold in falling 
from Heaven ! 
And how broken too, in the great depth of 
their fall ! 



EGGE BOMA. 37 

Still they are fouad in our soil, when we plow up 
the sites of old cities, 
And, when we dig anywhere, they will turn 
out of the earth ; 
Often they rise without heads, though the body 
remains undecavinoj. 
Think, they once were alive, walked in the 
streets of the town, 
With a man they would speak on the highway, 
or in the forest. 
And they would help him perchance, if he but 
knew how to pray." 
There she stopped for a moment as if to gather 
her power 
Boldly to utter the word which had come up 
in her heart : 
'' Nay, these Gods and Goddesses loved, they 
loved men and women. 
Who, though mortal, were fair, fair to the 
vision above ; 
Hot beat the hearts of the Gods in the joy of the 
love that was human. 
Had they been less of the man, they had not 
been the whole God, 
Theirs was the passion divine whose law is 
sweetly fulfillment. 
Then were divinity's sons born of the mothers 
of earth. 
So Rhea Silvia once gave birth to Romulus, 
Remus, 



38 PB0B8U8 BETB0B8US. 

Their high father was Mars, she was the 
mother of Rome. 
Still to-day we fondly go back to her story 
aforetime, 
Greatest of mothers she is, bearing the might- 
iest child. 
Oh the old ages when Gods were sporting in 
river and fountain I 
They would enter the home, give to good 
people their gifts ; 
Now they have to be dug from the ground, from 
the field of their warfare, 
Gathered into this hall, whence they can never 
escape, 
For they are prisoners banned into stone by the 
Pope in his castle. 
He will not pardon their sins, he cannot take 
off the curse." 
Almost in spite of herself she colored her words 
with her pity. 
Dark in her soul underneath flowed a lone rill 
from the Gods. 
But I could not help sighing aloud. to her sigh: 
" They are free no longer ! 
In a prison they stand simply set up to be 
seen. 
Once when they wooed in the world, they lived 
with the might of a passion. 
Now they as captives are held, suffered no 
longer to love.'* 



BOCE BOMA. 39 

Then she looked in my eye as if she suspected 
my matter, 
All at once a new rill bubbled up out of the 
depths, 
As her words in a mask took up the tone of 
inquiry : 
**Have you never yet heard they have their 
worshipers still, 
Who are scattered all over the earth, in country 
and city? 
Nobody knows who they are, or at what place 
they may live ; 
They are said to be born with a mark on their 
heart of this God-world, 
Which is unknown to their friends, even 
unknown to themselves. 
Till they read in a blood-sealed book which 
secretly tells them, 
Then to this worship they wake, though they 
know not what it is. 
Soon they start on a journey, they can hardly 
tell whither, • 
But the road leads to Eome, still the old haunt 
of the Gods, 
Whose true followers secretly come on a festival 
ancient 
Though it be hid in the day sacred perchance 
to a Saint. 
Thus they flock from every part of the globe, 
from each nation — 



40 PB0B8U8 BETB0BSU8. 

From wild Tartary's East, from new America's 
West, 
All who, born out of time, are seeking their 
ancient heirship. 
For they feel they can find here the old deities 

yet. 

Who though once hurled down to be stones, with 
bodies all battered, 
Still can arouse the same spell as in the past 
when they breathed, 
For they possess the God's power to work upon 
men in the distance, 
And they would lose this gift, if they were 
taken from Rome." 
Slyly that artful maiden peeped into my face as 
she said this. 
Trying to catch my thought as it took wing on 
a glance ; 
*< Is it so? " I asked then ; she answered, ** Yes, I 
believe it ; 
That is the power they have, drawing their 
own from afar." 
Doubtful she stood for a moment, testing her 
thoughts in a balance, 
Not quite sure of herself ; soon she was braced 
to her words. 
And she continued : ** Now the clock strikes to 
ask you a question : 
Are you not one of these men, followers of the 
old Gods? 



ECCE BOMA. 41 

I confess to you, long I have it suspected in 
secret, 
You have come over the sea, thousands of 
miles, to this spot; 
You are always haunting the sites of ruinous 
temples : 
Where these idols are, thither you hurry and 
stay. 
I have noticed you scarcely ever will go to the 
churches. 
And when you go, you hear never a word of the 
priest, 
Never will make the sign of the cross or bow to 
an image. 
But you look for old stones which in the wall 
may be built ; 
Scarcely you glance, as you pass, at the picture 
of Saint or Madonna, 
Yet if some statue be found thither you run in 
a joy. 
Not one word concerning the Pope, no desire to 
see him 
Has been uttered by you, though I besought 
you one day; 
And when I asked you to go and witness the 
grand crucifixion. 
You were silent as death, as if I crucified 
you. 
Once the priest came and sprinkled our dwelling 
with sanctified water. 



42 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

I saw you laugh to yourself when you thought 
I did not see ; 
When I asked you that day if ever you went to 
confession. 
You ran out of the house, leaving me all to 
myself. 
If I but tell of the miracle wrought by some 
hallowed relics, 
Though you repress for my sake, you cannot 
hide what you are. 
Often you waft me away with the hand or shrug 
up your shoulders ; 
You belong not to us, all of your mind is 
afar 
Back in the old days of Rome, although you were 
born in the present — " 
Just at this moment she turned suddenly off 
with her glance, 
On the spot she was changed as her eyes caressed 
a small statue : 
" See! this boy is my choice if I dare choose 
of these stones ; 
Winged he moves while dreamful he looks, yet 
laughs at his mischief; 
He cannot find what he is, I have been just in 
his* place. 
Hear me ! At moments I seem to be born back 
into that old life ; 
When these idols I see, I have to love them 
myself.'' 



EGGE BOMA. 43 

Closer she drew to my side and changed her tone 
to a whisper, 
For she feared her own voice when it burst out 
of lier heart, 
Lest it might utter the sin for which the whole 
world was once punished; 
Still she could not unsay what all her being had 
said; 
There at once I felt the kiss of her soul — she 
had found me, 
Just as I had found her, when with my heart- 
beats I cried: 
'** Call me by whatever name — be it heathen — 
I know not my title, 
Yet I know a delight which I have not felt 
before ; 
I cannot tell what it is, it came to me first with- 
out knowledge. 
Even far back in my years, longing I felt for a 
world 
Which had passed on its course and taken my 
heritage lovely; 
Groping amid the dim Past, stumbling around 
the wide globe. 
Over the ruins of Rome I fell in the midst of my 
journey. 
When I looked up I beheld just the fair world 
that I sought." 
" Tell then," she begged me, '« what is the 
festival you are now keeping? 



44 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

For a festal look you have been showing all 

day." 
*' This," I replied, " is the holiday sweet of the 

Muses and Amor, 
Come now, let us go home, out of this marble 

to life." 



3. The Roman Holiday. 

Stones with voices, columns with music, temples 
with language, 
Open your lips once more, speak me your 
spirit's still word! 
Threading your ancient piles, I always comeback 
to the modern. 
Hunting for aught far away, I have discovered 
myself. 
Give me the key-note of your great orchestra 
hewn out of marble 
That the thought and the word I may attune 
to your strain. 
What is that voice from the ruins ! its music 
sings out of the distance ! 
What is that form I behold! lovely its look 
turns to me. 
Is it the sound or the sight? O Rome, art thou 
song or a statue? 
I cannot tell what thou art, I do not know 
what I am. 



ECCE BOMA. 45 

Let me be danced on thy billows of joy till I sink 
in thy ocean ! 
Listen ! already the strain ! See them ! the 
Goddesses come ! 

All the Muses are dancing a measure around 
Hippocrene, 
Whose clear waters return ever their shapes to 
the eye; 
All the fair forms are divinely set free from the 
prison of garments, 
With a light veil round the loins, gently they 
swav to the wind ; 
All the Nine Sisters of song are sharing one soul 
in their beauty, 
There is now not a Muse absent or slighting 
her joy. 
Often with hands joined together they swiftly 
encircle the fountain, 
Round it a garland they weave, which of their 
bodies is made ; 
Often by threes they glide through curves of 
mellifluous movement. 
In a succession of wreaths crowning the pearl- 
dropping spring ; 
Often they singly are leaping with graceful 
intoxication, 
Carving by gesture reliefs on the clear frieze 
of the air. 



46 FBOBSUS BETB0BSU8, 

Always their bodies are singing in happy har- 
monious chorus, 
Singing by motion they are like the sweet 
stars of the sky. 
Always they turn to the fount that holds up be- 
fore them its mirror, 
In it they look at their forms, looking they 
show too the soul. 
Always they dwell in a temple of golden Olym- 
pian sunshine ; 
Say can the shade of a cloud ever pass over 
this world? 



Suddenly, madly into the group of innocent 
Muses 
Down lights Amor the Winged. Shivered to 
drops is the rill, 
Hippocrene grows turbid and restless, stirred by 
some passion. 
While the dancers have ceased dancinof their 
wreaths on the brink. 
How each Muse endeavors to take the boy to her 
bosom I 
Kisses his forehead and lips in a wild frenzy 
of love ! 
Amor, thou rogue of a Godling, all Nine at once 
are thy trophy. 
Each too being a Muse dowered with beauty 
divine ; 



ECCE BOMA. 47 

Was not one quite enough for thy triumph, 
insatiable gallant? 
Must thou have all in thy might, meekly obey- 
ing thy nod? 
Barest thou here, in the ancient walls of the 
conqueress mighty. 
Make thy conquest too, swaying the body at 
will? 
Darest thou here, in the sacred shades of 
hundreds of churches, 
Build thy heathen shrine, guiding the soul by 
thy torch? 
Yes, so it is — each Muse has become the 
servant of Amor, 
Every note of her voice can but re-echo his 
name, 
Which has been sung by the marbles of Rome 
for ages on ages 
In her temples and halls, e'en it is heard from 
her tombs. 
Amor, smallest of Gods, is the tyrant of sunny 
Parnassus* 
Where he is perched on the peak, shooting his 
darts round the world. 
But behold! now he comes, the lord of mighty 
Quirinus, 
On whose seven hills high he triumphantly 
sits ; 
Still the deceiver, he hides his dart in the folds 
of the Muses ; 



48 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Whoever seeks their embrace, by his sly arrow 
is stung. 
O ye shrines and temples and statues, I feel your 
true worship, 
Now I have found out your heart, felt too its 
beat in my breast ; 
And ye musical fountains throbbing up over the 
city, 
Now I know whence ye come, what too ye say 
in your joy : 
All the world thou art, O Rome, and yet without 
Amor, 
All the world is no world, Rome too alone is 
not Rome. 



4 Found. 

O, but the pleasure — and yet it is something far 
more than a pleasure 
Which I am having at Rome, strolling in paths 
of the past. 
What is the cause of this lofty attunement of all 
of the senses, 
Waking a music within unto the music with- 
out? 
And there is irresistible pressure of song in each 
heart-throb. 
Seeking to measure itself out of the old to the 
new. 



ECCE BOMA. 49 

Give me the beat of thy numbers, O City, sing 
me the key-note 
Which may be heard underneath all thy great 
Present and Past. 
As to-day I sauntered along by the banks of the 
Tiber, 
An old lute-string I found dropped in the rub- 
bish of time; 
Out of the refuse I plucked the musical chord of 
the Ancients, 
Soon I had cleansed it of filth by a quick bath 
in the stream ; 
Home I hastened with joy, in triumph bearing 
the treasure, 
Fastened the string to a shell that in mj room 
hung unused, 
Lightly I touched the new-strung chord with the 
tip of my finger, 
Hearkened the while for the note which it 
might throb to the air, 
For, O Propertius, I thought it might whisper 
the name of thy beauty, 
Or invoke a fair shape loved by a lyrist of 
old; 
But another it lisped in words that were shock- 
ingly modern. 
Yet with a rhythmical stride tuned to the 
step of a Greek ; 

Only the name of a maiden it hums now the 

stubborn old lute-string;; 
4 



50 PB0B8US BETR0B8US, 

But her dear body it wraps in a soft echo of 

folds , 
So that she moves in the drapery ta'en from the 

Goddesses' wardrobe, 
When they once dwelt on the earth, roaming 

with men in the fields. 



5. The Open Secret 

O ye talking marbles, galleries, palaces, ruins, 
What is the tale that I hear told by your 
voices of stone? 
Now before you I stand and joyously live in your 
presence. 
Question you much about Fate which over- 
took you of old. 
Speak from the heart of your hearts to the 
stranger your powerful secret, 
Which has drawn him to Rome wholly un- 
known to himself. 
All day long in your company strolling I eagerly 
hearken 
What to each other you say, what you are 
saying to me. 
And ye beautiful idols, let me interrogate briefly : 
Once driven out of the world, why now return 
ye to me? 
Say, does Amor always fly hither in search of 
his Psyche? 



ECCE BOMA. 51 

Do they, coming in stealth, find one another 
in Rome? 
Look, a dark eye of the South has been kindled, 
I feel its fierce ardor 
Firing the air in its path with an invisible 
flame ; 
Coal I supposed to be black, but this jet of thine 
eye is far blacker ; 
Inside I know is a mine, see, too, the mine is 
on fire. 
Filled with wonder and warmth, I gaze at the 
spray of its sparkles, 
Down it drops at my glance, shutting me out 
with its lid. 
What is this mystery seen in the eyes — the 
darker the brighter? 
And the severer the burn, so much the more is 
the joy? 
Nought can I see now, under an arbor of long 
slender lashes 
Gracefully curving around, lie in concealment 
the orbs, 
While above there glistens a frieze of the whit- 
est Carrera 
Resting on two arches dark where is the portal 
of sight. 
Cursed is ever the luck of the lover, my torch is 
extinguished 
Just the moment it lit, held in the blaze of 
thine eye. 



52 PB0B8US BETBORSUS. 

Now like a gleed that is dropped in its glow on 
the surface of water, 
It not only is quenched, but it is fuming in 
rage. 
Tender and fine is this flamelet of love, and pecu- 
liar in nature ; 
It must be kindled anew with every breath of 
the soul. 
Else it goes out with a puff that leaves us in 
dreariest darkness, 
Wherein demons run wild, feasting on hearts 
of despair. 
Seldom the flame will burn of itself, of its own 
precious matter ; 
Eye must look deep into eye, both are then 
kindled at once. 
What shall I do ? My look turns away to relieve 
disappointment. 
Seeks new objects of sight, rests on the form 
of a boy 
Who appears to shoot from a gleam and to glide 
into figure. 
On light pinions afloat — who can it be, do 
you think? 
Fresh-fledged Amor it is, eternally flying in mar- 
ble. 
Now more than ever he speeds, bent on the 
weightiest task. 
In the unsteady soft light of the Moon, the lamp 
lit for lovers. 



ECCE BOM A. 53 

That with a sheet of white mist covers the 
court where we sit, 
Pallid Diarble has won a new life, and is gifted 
with motion : 
Amor now starts from his base, reaching aside 
for his bow, 
Carefully too he chooses a fine-pointed, well- 
feathered arrow 
From a full quiver of bolts slung at his side 
from a belt. 
Placed on the notch is the string, to the barb 
drawn back is the missile, 
Steady he taketh his aim, fixed on I know not 
what mark. 
Brave little Amor was floating in mild undulations 
of moonshine, 
Chirp sang the bow-string released — where 
has fallen the shaft ? 
Startled from dreams by the twang of the bow 
and the whiz of the arrow, 
To the maiden I turned speedily casting a 
glance, 
Spying out whether she too had seen the wild 
doings of Amor — 
Mad, mysterious boy, recklessly shooting his 
darts 
In the dim moonshine which charms the eye to 
a lull sympathetic, • 

Till dull flesh turns to sleep while the light 
soul is a dream. 



54 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Gods ! each ray of her eye has become a fleet 
fiery arrow, 
Through my poor bosom have passed quiver 
and bolts and the bow. 
Now I can tell you where that shaft of mad 
Amor has fallen, 
Why he moved from his base wrapped in the 
robes of the Moon. 
Colonnades Koman, by night and by day, what 
lessons ye teach me, 
As I wander in joy through all your forests of 
stone ! 
Now I know what yon mean, ye parks, museums 
and gardens. 
What ye galleries say, peopled with sculpture 
antique ; 
All of you hold in your hearts the beautiful secret 
of Nature, 
Which you whisper to me haunting your 
presence just now : 
" We are the servants of Amor, through us he 
discovers his Psyche, 
Each of them comes to our Rome out of the 
ends of the earth. 
Both of them longing, yet wholly unable to tell 
what they long for. 
Till they enter our home, still the old home of 
the Gods. 
When the two lovers behold us, then they have 
found one another. 



ECCE nOMA. 66 

E'en in the church they embrace, taking it all 
to themselves." 



6. August Roma and Roman Augusta. 

Speak to me, Eome, what art thou — heathen, 
barbarian, or christian ? 
Or perchance all three blended together in one? 
Three great Eomes I can see, the old and the 
new and the middle ; 
Tell me where I belong, I do not know it 
myself. 
When I look at these ruins and temples, I am an 
old Roman, 
But when the maiden appears, down to the 
present I drop 
Suddenly through two thousand years without 
ever stopping. 
Then I take breath from the fall, I am again 
on my feet. 
Two are my fair ones, august Roma and Roman 
Augusta, 
They together belong both in the name and the 
deed. 
One has beauty of greatness, the other has 
greatness of beauty. 
Each is the image of each, mother and daughter 
I love. 
But the time is too precious just now to praise 
the high mother, 



56 PBOBSUS METROBSUS. 

Here is the daughter alone springing down 
into my boat, 
For g<n afternoon ride on the back of old Father 
Tiber ; 
Gaily she seizes the oars, over the current we 
speed, 
Merrily dancing along on the up and the down 
of the wavelets, 
To some invisible heart swelling and sinking 
in tune. 
Stay, O Sun, in thy course, restrain the mad 
flight of the Hours, 
Look from thy chariot on high, ponder the 
glories of Kome; 
Nothing so great has ever rose under thine eye 
on this planet. 
Thou, I know, hast seen all, measuring bloom 
and decay ; 
Stop thy steeds for to-day, let them rest on the 
slopes of the mountains 
Ere thou fling thyself down under the waves 
of the sea ; 
Pour thy fiery glances over the grand Colosseum, 
Burnish anew the old fanes with thy warm 
shimmer of gold. 
Climb the dome of St. Peter's as if thou wert 
mounting the heavens. 
Peep with thy passionate gleam into the 
windows and halls. 



ECCE BOM A. 67 

Cast all thy glow on the yellowish curls of old 
Father Tiber, 
Stoop down into his bed, swim with him here 
at our side, 
Enter the boat, and look along with me on her 
who is lovely, 
Hark, the sweep of her arm sings a refrain to 
the boat; 
As it rises and falls to the rythmical flow of the 
water, 
Beautiful verses she makes out of thy sunshine 
to-day. 
Verses — them I shall copy — Where is my note- 
book? List to the time-beat — 
One with the heart of the world, one with the 
old and the new. — 
*' Give me your glances and spare me your 
numbers," the maiden responded, 
' ' Tethered your tongue cannot move to the 
grand gait of the South." 
** Nay but I must," I replied, and started at 
once with my task there. 
Making all of great Rome dance up and down 
to the beat; 
'' See my refractory English keeping its stroke 
to thy oar-blades. 
And with thy body I count measures that 
flow like the folds, 
Eunning into hexameters, into pentameters also, 



58 PB0B8US BETBOMSUS. 

With the to and the fro rolled from the sway 
of thy shape. 
Thus my lines I set down, borne along by the 
joy of the current ; 
Who can resist the sweet spell, waked in the 
heart by the Muse ? 
But I confess at times I am lost in the trance of 
thy movement ; 
And I miss the right stroke in the delight of 
my mood ; 
Blame me not if once in a While I fall out of 
measure, 
With a fresh look at thy form I shall come 
back to myself. 
In this presence old Homer would madly break 
loose from his numbers, 
For a caress now and then, freed from the 
bondage of speech.''' 
Then I pick up my dangling line, just where I had 
dropped it, 
Mend it anew with a word — none can say 
where was the break. 
Thus we dally down stream till we pass by Monte 
Testaccio, 
Dreaming the dream of the world, as it here 
happened m Time. 
Through the centuries past we are floating down 
into the present^ 
Into the future we glide, castles we see in its 
dawn. 



ECGE BOMA. 59 

Suddenly springs up the maiden, dropping the 
oars in her terror ; 
" How shall we ever get back over the dash of 
the waves? 
I must turn round and work for dear life against 
the wild current ; 
Harder it is to stem, when you have gone with 
the stream." 
*' Be not anxious, O Dearest, fling to the Fates 
what must be, 
Is not to-day a reward for all the spite that 
can come ? 
Leave thyself to the Gods, and follow wise 
Tiber's example, 
He forever flows down, down to the infinite 
sea. 
But he somehow always returns to the tops of the 
mountains. 
Whence again he descends into the valley and 
plain. 
Two are the streams of the wonderful river, the 
upper and lower, 
Mounting in clouds to his source, falling in 
rills to the sea, 
Down hill to-day on the earth, to-morrow up hill 
through the heavens — 
Give me an oar ! there it strikes ! now I shall 
help thee turn round." 



60 FHOMSUS BETBOBSUS. 



7. On the Pincio. 



Grand is the sight and sovereign — look and 
become immortal ! 
All of the city is set golden in rays of the 
sun; 
Dearest, stand here and sweep over Rome from 
this height on the Pincio ! 
What has ruled in our world thou wilt now see 
in a glance. 
Here to the left is the Capitol, there to the front 
is St. Peter's — 
Two great masters of Time seated on two 
Roman hills. 
Sung by the musical stones from the tops of the 
loftiest steeples. 
Chanted by grim grizzled walls which the 
dark cloister engird. 
Whispered even by urns whose ashes long since 
have been scattered, 
What is that voice over all? Hear it again in 
these lines. 
One great word I can catch from the heart of the 
city eternal, 
That is the word which unites two loving hearts 
into one. 
Come, let us turn to these trees for relief, we 
are gilding the daylight. 
Dreaming the hours away drowned in a worldfut 
of joy. 



ECCB BOMA. 61 

Let US seek some repose from the pitiless arrows 
of Amor, 
Under this deep-leaved oak watching himself 

in the pool. 
How serenely he gazes in mild contemplation 

forever 
Viewing his sinuous limbs knotted in might for 

the blasts ! 
Stooping forward a little for firmness he stands 
like an athlete 
Eeady to strike or be struck ; covered with moss 
are old wounds. 
Here on his roots let us rest like the idle poetical 
shepherd, 
While we look at yon swan sporting his down 
on the pond. 
Beautiful oarsman in white, he propels unerring 
his pinnace, 
In each movement is grace, in all exertion is 
ease. 
Placid is sleeping the water, showing pellucid 
the bottom, 
Only the yawl of the bird laughingly wrinkles 
its face. 
See the oars of his feet, how they work in motion 
transparent ! 
Under the water the down sendeth the gleam 
of the dawn. 
Proudly rises the neck of the swimmer upheld by 
the Graces, 



62 PBOBSUS BETB0B8US. 

Sweeter than honey of bees is the distillment 
of form. 
With one thrust through the crystalline surface 
down to the bottom 
Deftly its ebony bill spoons up the glittering 
sand. 
Gracefully curves that long supple neck with its 
feathery flexure, 
As in a crystal preserved, though it is moving 
the while. 
Bird, a sculpture thou art, disrobed of Pentel- 
can marble. 
Clear as the light is thy life, beautiful, too, as 
this dav ; 
Or a God perchance, into thine his body trans- 
muting. 
Bringing thy fragrance of form from his 
Olympian home. 
Leda once sat on this bank and gazed at thy neck 
till she loved thee ; 
Softly thou swim'st to the brink, holding her 
eye in thy power ; 
Up the bank thou hast crept, how white are the 
arms that surround thee ! 
Like the marble the breast where thou art 
clasped in embrace; 
Loosened now is the zone, revealing the shape of 
the Graces, 
In that old innocent world free of our guilt 
and our shame; 



ECGE BOMA, 63 

Under the strokes of her palm rears the neck of 
the silvery swimmer, 
Quivering fiercely with joy in the soft wake of 
her hand ; 
Look ! the swan is changing ! the plumage turns 
to a lover 
Who appears a white form like in his glance to 
a God! 
Do I yonder behold the summit of snowy Olym- 
pus? 
Is it Zeus that I see, father of Gods and of 
men? — 
Dearest, again he is here, — that untamable 
rogue of an Amor, 
He has transformed himself into the swan on 
the pool; 
With his white plumes he feathers his arrow so 
subtle, unerring, 
Now the whole bird is cloud streaming forth 
showers of darts ; 
Vain is the flight from a God who commands like 
a tyrant all Nature, 
Changing it at his caprice into sly weapons of 
war. 
Running away from Love's bolt, I run right into 
his battle. 
Fleeing the face of a God is but to leap to his 
arms. 



64 PB0B8US METB0B8U8, 

What a world thou art, O Rome ! and yet I would 
have thee none other, 
Wert thou not what thou art I could not be 
what I am. 



8. In a Roman Wineshop. 

Mountains are laughing for glee, and the willows 
are weeping for gladness, 
Even the winds give a sigh from the excess of 
their joy, 
Trees come out in their passionate green, and 
are kissed by the summer 
While the amorous vine fondly is hugging the 
elm, 
In each other's embrace both shoot into leaflets 
and fruitage ; 
High the herds on the hills rollick together in 
pairs. 
Nature has put on to-day her new dress with a 
thousand of jewels. 
One huge diamond the sea sprinkles the air full 
of stars, 
Emeralds cover the slopes, amethystine the bend 
of the heavens, 
While the clouds are just now purest of pearls 
set in gold. 
Which the first goldsmith, the sun, has blazoned 
with all of his cunning 



ECCE BOMA. 65 

For the necklaces fair worn by Olympian 
queens. 
Yonder the Tiber is pouring in fun the flood of 
his amber, 
But a ruby I hold, gem of all gems, in my 
hand. 
Laughing me straight in the eye with hundreds 
and hundreds of sparkles, 
Ogling, coquetting in gleams, filling the room 
full of smiles — 
'Tis this wine. <« Say, what is thy name, dear 
youth?" <' Alessandro." 
*' Hast thou been long in Rome? " — "In the 
next house I was born. " — 
*« And thou servest this wine of the Gods for the 
banquet of strangers ? 
And the grace of thy form here thou dost pour 
with the draught? 
Ganymede be thou to me, witJh thee I shall mount 
to Olympus; 
Speed thee, another full bowl rounded with 
rubious beads." 
See ! Alexander the Great has become Alessandro 
the Greater 
Who is a conqueror too, helping me conquer 
the world. 
O ye Great Men of Eome, ye children of glory 
eternal, 
What is your triumph to mine, here as I sit in 
your place ? 

5 



66 FBOBSUS BETB0B8U8, 

Thou, O Caesar, mayst push out thine arms to 
the ends of the empire, 
Over the Euphrates leap, mount to springs of 
the Nile, 
Reach over Britain afar, and take in thy hand 
the whole Earth-ball — 
Still too small are its bounds for all thy might 
and thy mind. 
Put under law all the nations, mark out the path 
of the ages. 
Stride. from the east to the west, sweeping 
aloft with the sun. 
High overarch with thy deed the past, the present, 
the future — 
I to the wineshop shall go, lord of the universe 
too. 



9. The Roman Cupbearer. 

Alessandro, the wine that is poured with thy 
hand has a flavor 
That not elsewhere in Rome has been "revealed 
to my lips. 

Now thou art humbly a cupbearer here in this 
old dingy tavern 
Who once nectar didst serve in the bright pal- 
ace of Jove. 

The aroma of banquets ambrosial breathes from 
thy manner 



ECCE SOMA. 67 

As thou biddest the guest here to recline for 
his cup ; 
And thy movement already imparts to me inebri- 
ation 
Ere the wine has been raised to my unhallowed 
lips. — 
Mark but the path of his body as lightly he treads 
through the winehall 
For the Graces you see drawing each line of 
his gait; 
Would that his walk to yon door this instant 
were frozen to marble ! 
So might I always behold how young Apollo 
doth move. 
Cannot those outlines of air through which he has 
passed, be transmuted 
By some magical breath into Carrera the white ? 
Long ago lived a race which had faith in beauty 
immortal, 
Faith created a hand gifted with cunning di- 
vine, 
And that hand could turn into stone at the touch 
of a finger 
Mild repose of the God, or his swift movement 
in wrath. 
But that race has departed, and now for the 
deed of the Hero 
Is but the mould of the air into which first it 
was cast, 



68 PBOBSUS BETR0B8US. 

So that the godlike action is seen in the world no 
longer 
Fixed for the eye in the form which it received 
at its birth. — 
Here thou comest with Bacchus — fill to the 
brim, Alessandro ; 
O, thou art pouring thy grace with the clear 
stream of the wine. 
Thou, I now know, wert Ganymede, cupbearer of 
the Immortals, 
And immortal thyself, shining serenely as 
they. 
For the old Gods of Greece are here passing their 
ages of penance. 
Here at Eome, for their sins; one sees them 
oft in the streets, 
Oft in churches, in penitent prayer for some 
restoration, 
Darkly feeling their fall from a divinely high 
world. 
But Alessandro, thy food still droppeth from 
tables celestial, 
Graces thy body annoint, though they refuse 
their long folds. 
Happy symposiums held long ago in the halls of 
Olympus 
Look from thine eye of delight, show in the 
wave of thy hand. 
On the air the soft undulation of movement is 
sculptured 



ECGE BOMA. 69 

As thou disdaiiiest the floor with thy invisible 
wings ; 
Worthy in beauty to deck the high frieze of some 
ancient temple 
Would be the lines of thy limbs raised from 
the Parian block. 
Youth too bathes thy muscles so light in its tire- 
less essence, 
Thou dost spring with the morn till the mid 
watches of night ; 
Still thy limbs are not weary, thy gait is tilled 
with its motion, 
Not a line shrinks away though all thy minutes 
are leaps ; 
Nor have I ever beheld thy features grow dark 
with vexation. 
But thy humor serene laughingly sparkles at 
Fate. 
Intoxication thou art, Alessandro — I feel its mild 
madness 
Fragrantly rise to my brain, subtly commingled 
with wine. 
Thee I bespeak when my journey has led to the 
wiiiehall of Hades ; 
Cupbearer mine thou shalt be when I shall 
quaff with the shades. 



70 PBOESUS BETB0BSU8. 



10. The Goddess of the Capitol. 

Joyfully all the day long I visit the galleries 
Roman, 
Sink in their spirit and spell till to my time I 
am lost ; 
How the glad Hours pour up to the brim tlie 
wine of enjoyment, 
Till the cup, overfull, spills its choice drops on 
the ground ! 
Quite too much have I seen and enjoyed of this 
banquet immortal, 
Senses are dulled with delight, I cannot look 
any more. 
So I say to myself: I now shall go home for my 
sunshine, 
After a kindly rest, I shall take hold of my 
pen, 
And a poem shall write that runs to the beat of 
old measures, 
Though they must speak my own tongue, 
speak, too, my heart in their words. 
Then I reflect just how I may build the new work 
to perfection : 
In this R®me it must lie, as in a setting of 
pearls. 
And it must have the long colonnade of a classical 
temple, 



ECCE BOMA. 71 

Through whose spaces is seen freely this Na- 
ture outside, 
But within the fair temple must rise up the holy 
inclosure, 
Where the high Goddess doth stand, lit from 
the light of the sky. 
Unto her I shall hymn in all the keen rapture of 
beauty, 
Then in life I must have what is her counter- 
part true ; 
Naked and cold are these marble joys of ideal 
existence, 
If flesh and blood do not come warming their 
nudity chill. 
Thus I have planned, already the measures are 
humming within me, 
Even I change my gait, for I must walk to 
their stroke; 
Slowly I saunter along by myself on the way of 
Four Fountains, 
Look at Quirinal the grand, rounding a verse to 
my mood ; 
See ! a shape darts past ! in disguise yet seeming 
to know me ! 
Hiding itself it appears, willing yet not to be 
hid. 
I must follow the charm and discover this secret 
of nature : 
Ha ! it is thou in a mask, telling me &till what 
thou art. 



72 PB0B8U8 BETBOBSUS. 

Why hast thou covered to-day the Junonian bend 
of thy forehead 
With that envious hood made to conceal what 
is fair? 
Under monotonous wrappage thou hidest the 
sweep of thy figure, 
That once rose in soft swells through all the 
harmonies sweet; 
And the caress of mine eye thou refusest, un- 
scrupulous maiden 
After toying so oft with its fond credulous 
beams? 
Now it is time, I see, of myself to disburden thy 
presence ; 
Yet unwilling art thou that I at once should be 
gone? 
Fair dissembler, I know thee; — 'tis an old trick 
of you women : 
You will seem hard to catch when you already 
are caught. 
Strange how early young Amor, divine precep- 
tor, has taught you 
That we men love the chase, when we must 
toil for the game. 
Ha ! the trouble I see, thou art jealous of stones 
and of statues ! 
To the Goddesses fair overmuch time I 
devote. 
Come now, let us talk sense; each word be the 
word of pure wisdom. 



ECCE EOMA. 73 

Speedy amends I shall make, reaping the har- 
vest of Rome. 
Here sit down at my side, and let me recount to 
thy glances 
What to-day I have found, seeking the treas- 
ures of sight. 
Quick was my step tliis morn to ascend the 
Capitoline Hillock, 
There to behold the fair forms which were 
once worshiped as Gods. 
Through the long passage I wandered where, on 
each side of the gazer, 
Hoar divinities look, yet they appear not to 
look. 
Many a shape I beheld of the Caesars, great men 
and women; 
Dreamful Brutus was there, man with the face 
of a child ; 
On a tree leaned the Satyr, shiftless, in sunshine 
eternal. 
While Alexander the Great conquered the 
world at a glance ; 
Youthful Antinous gazed upon Fate with the 
sorrow of ages. 
In the center lay Death — turn, let us go back 
to Life. 
Then alone in a joy I slipped to the chamber of 
Venus, 
Who here awaits at her shrine those who may 
come to adore ; 



74 PB0BSU3 BETB0BSU8. 

Free of the presence of men was the neat little 
house of the Goddess, 
Who, still loving the laugh, smiles on be- 
holders of faith. 
There she stood in her glory, revealing her shape 
to a mortal, 
Though she played with her hand over around 
and adown. 
Seeming to try to conceal from mine eye her 
fairest perfections. 
Which in their form most allure when to be 
hid they appear. 
Ha ! the first woman thou art and also the last, 
in this marble 
Caught by a cunning Greek hand fast in thy 
beautiful lines. 
Which are holding all nature forever here fixed 
in a gesture. 
Hiding unhidden thy charm, speaking un- 
spoken thy thought. 
Lovely Queen of the Capitol, now I know thee a 
Goddess, 
For thou revealest thy form by thy conceal- 
ment divine; 
From the eye and the heart of the mortal thou 
winnest devotion. 
He is forced to behold what thou dost feign to 
conceal. 
Ere he is ware, he is tranced in the ecstasies 
deep of thy worship. 



ECCE BOMA, 75 

Thralled by thy gesture and look, which by 
refusal allure. 
For the assent of thy soul assumes the coy form 
of denial, 
And thy No works a spell deeper by far than 
thy Yes. 
Therein must I adore thee as the divine one of 
women. 
Whose first art is to hide what she most helps 
to be seen. 
But not too far must thou push thy ambiguous 
play, sportive Goddess, 
Else thy shrine will be left by the proud man 
in despair. 
Herein divinity lies : to keep in the distance 
fruition. 
But not hope to destroy in the sweet prelude 
of love. 
Let me be tossed by thy hand like a ball between 
hope and fulfillment ; 
Always the first let me have as the choice food 
of the soul, 
But the second — play it before me — a vision 
Olympian 
Which my touch will not bide, though I must 
ever pursue. — 
Thus I spoke to the Goddess, and yet I spoke to 
the maiden. 
Somehow the twain were blent into one shape 
to mine eye ; 



76 PBOBSUS BETEOBSUS. 

Such are the tricks thouplayest, O Eome, beguil- 
ing the stranger ; 
Each seems the copy of each, both are the 
woman I know. 
I cannot tell it ■— which is the marble and which 
is the maiden? 
Breathing the statue now moves, gives a sweet 
look, then a kiss. 



II. Nature and Art at Rome. 

Often I know not what I should think of this 
nudity Roman, 
Which in each street and each house meets me 
and speaks with a charm ; 
That old world must have been more natural 
even than Nature, 
What a delight in the form ! — is it my right 
or a sin? 
These fair shapes of cold marble are altogether 
too life-like. 
Do they cleanse us of dross, or do they rob us 
of shame? 
Classical is the sweet dance of the senses 
sporting in sunshine, 
But the Teutonic fiend creeps on the joy of the 
South. 
Somehow to-day bright Rome is darkened with 
grim Northern devils. 



ECCE BOM A. 77 

Which I have brought from my home over the 
ways of the sea ; 
The Antique I must leave for a time, its truth is 
too naked, 
Under the ban of the law, ages on ages it 
lies. 
So to-day I shall follow the law, the stern law, 
though it slay me, 
Just for one day I abjure wholly the beautiful 
world. 
Off I run from the city that I get free in the 
country, 
Breathe of the sinless hills, drink of the inno- 
cent brooks, 
As they leap down the slopes not far from Castle 
Gandolfo, 
By the Alban Mount rocking the cradle of 
Eome. 
See, I have to turn back to that fountain — gone 
is resistance — 
To the fountain of rills where are the washers 
at work ; 
Just a moment ago I passed them with fierce res- 
olution, 
Now so soon I return, drawn by the spell of the 
sight. 
What is the witchery in yon maidenly shape that 
allures me? 
I am afraid that I like more than I ought what 
I see. 



78 PBOBSUS BETR0BSU8. 

Bare to the knee for her labor, she stands in the 
flow of the water ; 
Why not a nymph of the stream seen by some 
fabulist old ? 
Strong is the sweep of her figure like an athlete 
in wrestling, 
Golden her hair falls down in a lone braid to 
the waist, 
Many the seams of rich metal appearing to 
thread through her tresses. 
Shifting their glistening hues under the sun- 
shine and shade. 
When she bends up and down, the rise and the 
fall of her body 
Dances me over its waves as I were tossed on 
the sea. 
And the soft tint that blushes her face and 
blanches her forehead, 
Comes from a wind-winged hand held from the 
tops of the hills. 
Nor could the eye-sight easily turn from the hem 
of her kirtle 
Which was trying to hide, modestly naked, 
the limbs ; 
Then the vision would wander along her arm's 
gentle taper, 
Till it would drop on her breast, sucking 
deep joy like a babe. 
Through mine eyes I was juggled once into 
sweet dreams of palpation. 



ECGE BOMA, 79 

And my looks by her form were into finger- 
tips turned. 
Not in vain, O Kome, have I fled from thy 
galleries lofty, 
Here is the gallery true holding fair life in its 
bloom; 
Nature herself is my guide now eager to show 
me her sculpture 
In the first workshop of Time, hinting the 
sources of Art. 
But I had often to laugh at the passionate gush 
of the fountain, 
As it bubbled and seethed, full of the stormiest 
love. 
Eound her ankles it raved, oft trying to struggle 
up further. 
Till the knee it would kiss in a mad fit of 
desire. 
Then it would fall back into the current, by 
effort exhausted. 
Glad to sink into nought, for such a moment 
of bliss. 
Hark within me ! a judgment I hear against the 
wild fountain ! 
Shall it follow its law which is but Nature's 
. decree? 
Shall I follow my law, which, pitiless, makes me 
its victim? 
Or shall I joyfully flow down with the stream 
to the plain? 



80 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8, 

Every drop of that rill, though brewed on the 
tops of the mountains, 
In a frenzy appears, it has refused to run on, 
But it whirls in currents and eddies around the 
white members, 
Seeking to swoon to a kiss where it might fall 
on her form. 
Some in their vehemence even leap up in the 
air to behold her, 
As if each little globe were a lone passionate 
soul. 
Look ! the whole brooklet is now one boisterous 
flutter of impulse. 
Goes where it ought not to go, does what it 
ought not to do. 
Yet how clear and happy it leaps from its mount- 
ainous sources ! 
Nature has poured its heart full of a thrill 
and a bliss, 
And whenever it sees with its myriads of crys- 
talline eyelets 
Beautiful things for the sense, it with new 
ecstasy springs. 
Hark again to the law ! «' Here stay no longer 
with nature; 
Not bare life must thou see, but the fine spirit 
of life ; 
Gross are the senses if not transfigured to vision 
beyond them. 



EGGE BOMA, 81 

Not for the form must thou love, but for the 

God in the form." 
Such was the deity's voice, proclaiming the law 

of Olympus; 
Now I am ready to go, leaving the washers 

behind ; 
Rome, to thee I return, thou hast found the 

secret of Nature, 
I in thy marbles must find what is the secret 

of Rome. 



12. On the Tiber. 

Look! the God of the River is swimming in 
rage down the valley ! 
Come, let us mount him and ride, testing his 
mettle divine. 
How he maddens and whirls back his yellowish 
locks in the passage ! 
Thrice he bends his huge form, struggling to 
crawl through the town. 
In the efibrt he hisses and squirms and twists 
like the Hydra 
Till he has wound past the walls, gliding away 
to the sea. 
What is greatest in action, what in thought is 
most regal; 
What is most beautiful too, in his three folds 
he has caught ; 



82 PB0B8US BETBOBSUS. 

Under the bridges he rolls and sweeps by the 
palaces lofty. 
While iie holds in his coils worlds that are 
old, that are new. 
Tell me, O Eiver, what is the source of thy 
power so lasting? 
Why has the Earth such a charm just at this 
spot on her face ? 
Enter the pinnace, O Dearest, let us surrender 
our bodies 
To the Tiber's embrace, though he look sullen 
and dark. 
True it is that his forehead is moody with striving 
and turmoil 
From his grim struggle with earth that would 
confine his free stream; 
And his breast is turbid and swollen with throes 
of his passion. 
As he hurries along in a low mutter of wrath. 
But when he meets at the end the translucent 
Sea, his happy beloved, 
Lying in boundless repose under the eye of 
the Sun, 
With her he mingles his waters, placid they rest 
in her bosom, 
To her crystal transformed by the embrace of 
her love ; 
For her purity washes his face of the slime of 
the conflict, 



ECGE BOMA. 83 

All his violent threats turn to the tenderest 
notes, 
And the Tiber is cleansed, though muddy and 
fretful his humor, 
To sereneness and peace slowly transmuting 
his stream. 
Enter the pinnace with faith, and let us be 
rocked on his wavelets 
Into that quiet sea where we behold his repose ; 
I descry in the distance along the Western 
horizon 
Waters that sparkle in dreams under the glance 
of the Sun. — 
Into the boat she has stepped with the fearless 
tread of a sailor. 
Firmly she grasps the rude oar that overfills 
• her white hand, 
Laughingly leaps in the current the boat — I 
rejoice at the omen. 
Woman must labor with man on the rough 
river of life. 
Nay, her lot is the harder both in the toil and 
the danger, 
She performs the great work, he has to idly 
» look on, 

She must surrender her body in trust for the 
being of others, 
Often her life she impawns for the new life of 
her love. 



84 PEOESUS BETBOBSUS. 

So I look at the maiden plying her oar in the 
waters, 
Whilst with my paddle I aid, guiding the 
flight of the boat ; 
Soon the red pencil of gentle exertion has tinted 
her features 
Toning nature's soft flush into the delicate 
white, 
As amid the pallid and fugitive light of Aurora 
Flashes the first-born ray fresh from the red- 
golden Sun. 
What is this mood that I hear attuned to the 
flow of the Tiber ? 
Is it the chant from yon church, or an old 
hymn of the God? 
Hark ! her arms are thrilling the air into mu- 
sical measures, 
While her hand in response whirls in broad 
circles the oar ; 
Forward she moves to the tune of the stroke on 
the billowv waters, 
Backward her body returns, ruled by the 
rhythmical wave ; 
Every bend of her form is a note of melodious 
movement, ^ 

Struck from its home in the air, where it is 
hidden to all. 
Save when her grace reveals the abode of the 
dulcet vibration, 



EGOE BOMA. 85 

By a mere sweep of the hand, or by a cast of 
the head. 
What can it be that pours in my soul the full 
goblet of pleasure? 
Something my spirit inspires more than her 
look in its glow; 
All my senses are bathed in delicious dew of the 
fancy ; 
Something commands these lines with a tyran- 
nical nod. 
Now in the shape of the woman I read the first 
poem of Nature, 
As she in Paradise rose mothering all of the 
world, 
In herself I can see her, methinks, as Adam 

first saw her 
. Just as she moved in his glance, new from the 

hand of the Lord. 
How I float on the rise and the fall of a river of 
motions, 
To which the Tiber keeps time, hoary old God 
of the stream ! 
He too is charmed, and raises his head from the 
bed of his waters. 
Shaking his chaplet of reeds, jealous of mortals 
he seems. 
But there is a whole Tiber within me, on it I am 
tossing, 
How I surge up and down driven by tempest 
and flood ! 



86 FBOBJSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Has little Amor grappled the powerful God of 
the Eiver, 
There ! see his eye I down he dives — under the 
surface he swims. 
Kind Father Tiber, from the worry and whirl of 
thy devious current 
Bear in safety our boat fleeing o'er shallows 
and slime; 
Then at last to the haven of Mediterranean 
quiet, 
Eocking thy cradle of waves, float us along on 
thy stream. 



13. The Old Titan at Rome. 

Fleet run the days as I trip light-hearted from 
temple to temple, 
Though but a fragment the fane, still it hath in 
it a God; 
Let it be but the drum of a column, a piece of 
a cornice, 
In it the nectar is caught dropped from Olym- 
pian feasts. 
Here is a door in this dark dingy ruin, come, 
let us enter, 
For the deity haunts all the old places he 
loved. 
He will strike us a light if we look with the eyes 
of the faithful : 



ECGE BOMA. 87 

Ha, a wineshop it is, here is a God that I 
know. 
Speedily he will illumine our darkness with 
gleams of his sunshine. 
Let us trust him at once that we may find out 
his will. 
Alessandro, some wine ! the best from the hills of 
Albano ! 
Where on the sides of the mount vineyards are 
hung from the heights, 
And their beautiful tapestry, woven of leaves 
and of sunbeams 
In its quick changes of hue pictures the time 
of the year. 
Speed, Alessandro, fetch while I tell of the wine 
of Albano, 
Be the cup bearer thou, be we the Gods at the 
feast. — 
There the earth is a cinder that glowed with an 
ardor volcanic. 
In the mountain close by, ages unnumbered 
ago. 
Now the blaze is extinct, no longer is heard the 
contention, 
Stygian tasks are performed, days of repose 
we behold. 
But the grape still draws up the glow that once 
gleamed in the ashes, 
Sucks from the soil to itself slumbering sparks 
for the wine. 



. 88 PBOBSUiS BETBOBSUS. 

So the fierce dust of the Titan who raged long 
ago in the mountain 
Still his spirit contains, still his wild fury 
imparts. 
Then he was lord of yon summits, thence over- 
ran the Campagna, 
Sweeping adown in his might from his high 
fastness of rock. 
Also a cup he possessed, and still we call it a 
crater. 
Goblet foaming with flames, flowing down over 
its sides 
Into the valley below till reaching the current of 
Tiber " 
The red liquid is cooled mingled with watery 
draughts. 
But now behold ! in place of the crater of 
Titanic monsters 
Is the wine bowl of man sending up gently its 
sparks. 
Thirsty mortals we are — to our lips it offers re- 
freshment. 
While it wakes in our souls Gods that have 
slept from our birth. 
Look ! the old Titans still work, have a means of 
transmitting their power. 
And for the men of to-day active they are as 
of yore. 
Though they are dead in the hills and their bones 
through the valleys are scattered, 



ECCE BOMA. 89 

Still from their ashes they leap, live a new life 
in the cup. 
'Tis the grape which begets them anew, yet 
softens their nature, 
And has distilled their dark force into a thou- 
sand clear drops. 
Drink of him, comrade, till the red flashes along 
thy white forehead 
I may behold — lightnings faint, dimly re- 
vealing the form 
Of the huge Titan, as he once glared from the 
top of Albano ; 
Now he can send but a ray which doth illumine 
the face. 
Yet how he labors to loosen himself from the 
grip of thy reason, 
And to drive about wild in a mad frolic of 
yore ! 
Drink of him daringly — soon within thee the 
Titan will thunder, 
Two little craters I see darting their flames 
from thine eyes. 
One more drop, Alessandro ; we have discovered 
the temple 
And before we are done, we shall discover the 
God. 

14. Those Tell-tales, the Muses. 

Fain would I hide in myself these joys of Roman 
existence. 



90 PBOEiSUS BETBOBSUS. 

But they sing of themselves into averse ere 
they stop; 
Somehow they rise in a rapture and run at their 
birth into measure, 
Leaped they not with their feet, never would 
they be at all. 
So to the world my secrets are told by the garru- 
lous Muses, 
Who delight to repeat what tender souls may 
confide, 
And to robe soft whispers of love in the hues of 
the rainbow. 
Singing with passion aloud what is most hid 
in the heart. 
Those vibrations of fiery joy that thrill through 
the body 
They endow with a voice tuned to the music 
within ; 
And my timorous fancies boldly they sing to the 
idle, 
Who are quick to repeat all that the gossips 
may teach ; 
Even they lead before me my brain's illegitimate 
children. 
Whom I have to disown when I am faced by 
the law, 
Though the Muses malicious take pleasure in 
making them pretty. 
Dressed in imagery's pomp, graceful in move- 
ment and song. 



ECGE BOMA. 91 

But, oh ye tattlers, why did ye point out the 
brood to the maiden ? 
She is jealous, ye know, e'en of my thought 
yet unborn. 
To what extremities by your wild frolic have I 
been driven ! 
From your wanton excess danger ahead I can 
see. 
Once I controlled the tireless steeds of speech in 
their chariot, 
Now by the Sisters the reins rashly are jerked 
from my grasp. 
Silence, O sable mysterious Goddess of Night, I 
invoke thee ; 
Thy divinity now is the first word of my 
creed ; 
Bring back the time I installed thee as faithful 
guard of my treasures ; 
But thy seal has been broken, trampled thy 
jewels to dust. 
Silence is gold, I have heard — 'tis more, 'tis the 
deep mine of diamonds 
Which illumines itself, needing no lamp of the 
Sun. 
To the man secretiveness is the flower of wisdom, 
To the woman allowed is the light play of the 
tongue. 
Thus my dissatisfied self I was propping with 
new resolutions 



92 FBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

When the sound of a voice ran into verses at 
once: 
' ' But the Muses are women — from them to lock 
up thy secrets ? 
To so many sweet lips wilt thou forbid the 
sweet word ? 
Ah, nine men would perish weighed down by thy 
cruel injunction ; 
But nine women ■ — O fool, what has become 
of thy wits ? 
This Italian sun, while heating thy heart into 
passion, 
Also has baked thy brain into a handful of dust. 
Mark ! thou wilt never again be free of those tell- 
tales, the Muses, 
Hear ! they are telling just now secrets shut 
close in thy heart ; 
Often already of thee they have told what should 
have been hidden. 
They are not going to stop singing the music 
of Kome." 

15. A Little Roman Olympus. 

Speak to me not, for my fancy is caught in a 

vision delightful. 
And with a joy in the soul, who can abide the 

dull word? 
Still I shall feel it and say it and shape it to 

musical measures, 



ECCE BOMA. 93 

I must utter myself, e'en if I talk all alone. 
Every house is a palace at Kome, it may be a 
temple, 
Which some God doth indwell, Goddess you 
always will find. 
Nay, each room of the house has often a godlike 
possession, 
Visibly deity comes giving his gift unto all. 
What is now the delight? The Divine I have 
seen in a bath-room, 
Eather a shrine be it called which to devotion 
invites. 
Many divinities drop down silently into that 
chamber. 
Small is the size of the fane, yet it of beauty 
is full. 
How J. happened to come to the place demands 
explanation. 
Here is the story of chance favoring worship- 
ers true. 
Long I had trodden the streets from the tops of 
the hills to the Tiber, 
Viewing the fountains of Kome, looking at 
Tritons and Nymphs — 
Forms of the water which leap into life up out of 
the water 
Blowing a stream through a shell, cowering 
under the waves. 
Of a sudden I came to a house which I knew by 
its door-step, 



94 PB0BSU8 BETB0B8U8. 

For I had been there before ; quickly the 
knocker I seized, 
Soon the door flew ajar, and a voice I heard at 
the threshold : 
*'You are weary, I see; go, be renewed by 
the bath." 
What could I do but obey the command I already 
had wished for ? 
In a spiral the stair led me up into the room; 
There at the view the spirit took strength even 
more than the body. 
For another small world I in deep wonder be- 
held. 
Clear with a joy lay the fount in its bed of 
smooth alabaster, 
Crystal both of them were, held in each other's 
^ embrace. 
Nor could you say first which was the water and 
which was the crystal, 
Things so unlike in our world may be trans- 
parently one. 
On the ceiling above was circling a garland of 
Amors, 
Looking down at the fount which their sweet 
images held ; 
All the delights of sunny Olympus arose from 
their gestures. 
As they flew with their feet, as too they danced 
wuth their wings ; 



ECCE BOMA, 95 

And their infantile bodies sang with a musical 
cadence, 
Out of their motions of grace wreathing a 
roundel of love. 
Next on the wall, coy nymphs stood out in relief 
from the surface, 
All prepared to descend into the pool at their 
feet; 
Some, half unrobed, were playing amid the trees 
of the forest. 
Others, bared to the zone, wound in a knot 
their long hair. 
One, the fairest, had entered the limpid laugh 
of the water. 
Under the crystal you see lovely proportion of 
form. 
But on a pedestal yonder, above the glass of the 
fountain, 
Turning her glances aside into the mirroring 
depths 
Crouches Cythera. Happiest here she looks in 
her temple ; 
Idly her garments are thrown over the vase at 
her side ; 
Outlines of light are flashed from her body as 
fine as the sunbeams, 
Through a universe fair wholly made up of 
herself. 
As she beholds her true image returned from the 
water's reflection. 



96 TBOESUS BETB0B8US. 

She has that which she is subtly revealed to 
herself. 
Yet with a smile of content at the view, she is 
playfully seeking, 
From her own eyes to conceal guiltless en- 
chantments of form ; 
She would appear to be modest, aye, me thinks 
to be bashful, 
Willinof ao:ain to unknow what she has will- 
ingly known. 
Is. it knowledge's modesty, or is it modesty's 
knowledge ? 
Were not Nature so near, I would maintain it 
were Art. 
Whom dost thou see, O Goddess, what face 
peeps out of the water? 
Lies beneath it some God, thence to behold 
thee in stealth? 
Art thou playing, playing alone with thy sweet 
secret fancies ? 
And alluring art thou to thine own beautiful 
shape? 
Look ! there is in the fountain one who is fur- 
tively gazing. 
But the intruder art thou, caught in that mirror 
and held ; 
Now thine image is slowly transmuted to Mars, to 
thy lover, 
And from his mirrored glance thou art pre- 
tending to hide. 



ECCE BOMA. 97 

Bather divine, forever sporting in joy with thy 
fancy, 
Which, unknown to thyself, pictures another's 
fond face 
There in the fountain floating mid dreams en- 
raptured of beauty. 
Feign from his glance to conceal what thou 
wouldst have him to see, 
Softly transmute the coarse senses to the fine 
spirit of vision 
Which doth the Goddess behold in the fair 
forms of the world. 
Everything in thy walls is divine, O Rome the 
eternal , 
Thou art the sum of thy works, yet thou art 
also thyself; 
But of all of thy works so divine, thyself art 
divinest, 
Thou art all of thy deeds, yet thou art some- 
thing far more. 
Each little mark on thy face is a line of Olympian 
grandeur, 
And in thy presence to-day each little man 
waxes great ; 
Thine is the power to stretch out the soul, the 
small soul of the mortal, 
Till it the universe fills, though thou art ruins 
and dust. 



98 FBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. 

Even to bathe is a worship at Eome, a festival 
splendid. 
At which are present the Gods, nor do the 
Goddesses fail. 



16. Anticipation. 

Which is the sweeter, the love of thy art, or the 
art of thy loving, 
I cannot tell O Eome, both of them are but 
one joy. 
And they spring from the same deep sources 
within the man's bosom ; 
Let him look into himself, there he the fount- 
ain will spy. 
Often I follow the one, but come in my search to 
the other, 
When the marble I seek, lo, it is life I have 
found. 
Love of thy art blends into the art of thy love 
in my journey — 
All without my design, I cannot help what I 
am. 
Often I query : Now which is the Goddess and 
which is the mortal, 
Both to Olympus belong, both too, belong to 
the earth. 
But in these verses, I know, is hidden a tempest 
of trouble. 



ECGE ROMA, 99 

Which is sure to break loose when I recross 
the great wave ; 
When out of reach of classical eyes beneath 
native beeches 
By some shepherdess fair I am enthralled once 
again. 
If I offer to pipe in her ear a pastoral ditty, 
She will quickly demand: '* Where is thy 
maiden of Rome? 
Whose proud name thou hast woven in many a 
garland of flowers, 
Where I have read it oft mid their delicious 
perfume ? 
Well do I know she wore thy bright circlet of 
bloom and of blossom 
In the pride of a queen crowned with her jewels 
and gold. 
But no longer renewed by thy hand, the garland 
has withered, 
Under its wilted leaves it has become full of 
spines. 
All the sweet hours of beauty and love it has 
turned into torture, 
On the pitiless thorns blood may be seen from 
her brow. 
For thy poetical nosegay thou pluckest the heart 
of a maiden, 
Then thou leavest to wilt both the fond heart 
and the flowers." 



100 PB0BSU8 RETB0BSU8 

With excuses and circumlocutions and fiery 
denials 
Singeing the garment of truth, scarce can I 
make a defense: 
**Pooh? that girl! she was only an allegorical 
maiden 
Whom I found in Kome, using her just for my 
verse.'* 
*'Talk tome not — you poets are fond of our 
heart's vivisection, 
Bleeding the warm pulse of love that you may 
color your lines." 
To explain the old to the new is no easy matter, 

Many a fable I try tinted with imagery fair. 
Prevarication is a rough road that always is 
jolting 
Into a stammer the tongue when it may travel 
that way. 
So I shall writhe under glances showering 
sparkles of anger, 
Fickleness is the reproach, if not a worse 
charge be made. 
What a horrible gallows is built of poetical 
measures, 
If the poet must give rigid account of his 
lines ! 
Say, shall prosaic propriety throttle divine in- 
spiration, 
Or shall Pegasus still have the free range of 
the clouds? 



ECCE BOMA. 101 

But be silent, O Muse, let us take the warning 
in season. 
Gently rein in our steed, lest we be cast from 
his back ; 
Pegasus always mounts too near the planet of 
Venus, 
With the loose Goddess to stray even in 
heavenly fields. 



17. Art and Life. 

Chilly and stark to the touch is the crystalline 
form of the Goddess, 
She could make no response, if you would give 
her a kiss; 
Therefore it is that I have to go back into life 
and the living. 
Then I can see with the touch, then I can touch 
with the eye. 
Thus I learn of the spirit that runs into lines of 
the marble; 
Eising from sight to the soul, feel I an infinite 
sense. 
Rome, to-day thou art old, I too have grown old 
in thy ruins, 
To the fountain of youth I must return for a 
drink ; 
I am exhausted, I can no longer draw breath 
from these statues 



102 PBOB^UJS BETBORSUS. 

Till aojain I behold all of their outlines alive. — 
'* Thou art getting gray hairs, I can see one 
streaking thy temples," 
So I was teased by the maid, merry with 
youth's sparkling wine. 
*« That I deny," was my answer of warmth to 
the fell accusation, 
" 1 have been snowed in not yet, by the fierce 
snow-storm of years." 
Ere I could turn she had plucked out the fiber of 
envious silver, 
Held it up to mine eye laughing in triumph the 
while, 
With the clutch of despair I grasped at the hor- 
rible trophy. 
Still it dangled above reach as I might for her 
hand. 
"That was a coward," I cried, *' from the one 
do not judge the whole army; 
He alone has grown pale hearing the tramp of 
the years 
In the distance, as they advance with slow-step- 
ping phalanx. 
On the fortress of youth hurling the frost of 
old Time." 
While I was speaking, with dexterous hand she 
caught out another 
Then another till three there she had conjured 
to view, 



ECCE BOM A, 103 

Three pale ghosts from the grave they suddenly 
rise on my vision, 
And a message they bring blasting with terror 
the soul ; 
For they are heralds, and they announce with 
the sound of the trumpet. 
That the dread tyrant. Old Age, comes and 
will soon be in sight. 
Rigid as stone I gaze at the specters more dire 
than Medusa, 
Now my head will be bleached white as the 
snow by the fear 
And to-morrow I, an old man, shall rise with the 
Sungod, 
Totter along down the street robbed of the 
half of my life. 
But O hear her, the brave and the youthful, chase 
off the monsters 
That are gnashing their teeth over my head in 
the air, 
For she speaks sweet words which are winged 
with arrows of Amor : 
** Give me to bathe my hot hand in the fresh 
rime of these locks ! 
I would like forever to sport in the flakes of the 
snow-fall, 
And my lips I would cool on the fresh brow 
of the frost." 
Up, let us go; I now understand the spirit of 
marble, 



104 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Now I can see fair life move into lines of the 
stone. 
And from the Goddess' lips I can hear the un- 
speakable secret. 

As in my heart I behold how she becometh 
divine. 



18. Experience. 

As I wander about in a joy from ruin to ruin, 
And from this church to that, where I may 
find an old stone, 
On the way I hold it a duty to peep into wine- 
shops, 
Which are happily ranged just on the path to 
the Gods. 
Oft I have tested the soul of the grape from 
Mount Fiascone, 
And the mad Titan I know lying on many old 
hills. 
Yesterday, let me confess, I took too much of the 
giant 
Who imparts his sly wrath still through the 
mild Alban 2jrape; 
Treacherous is that draught when served from 
thy hand, Alessandro, 
For thy grace adds a drop trebling the ardor 
divine. 
First, a gentle succession of gleams illumed 
my horizon, 



ECCE BOMA. 105 

Giving new suns to the day, hanging new 
stars in the sky. 
Soon it grew to a blaze, through the brain the 
lightning volcanic 
Flashed like a tempest unchained mid the wild 
waves of the sea. 
Then I saw in my dream the huge Titan rise up 
from Albano, 
Belching his fiery blasts with the mad eyes of 
revenge 
'Gainst the clear sunny home of Jupiter high on 
Olympus, 
Where calm reason and joy dwell on the 
heights with the Gods. 
How he bellowed and roared and grimaced in 
angry defiance ! 
Dire was the pain of the cramp wrenching his 
bowels of stone. 
But there followed the mighty eruption, when 
the sick Titan 
Burst with retching his sides, all overflowing 
the plain. 
After his labor he fell into sleep, and I along 
with him 
Slept, till Apollo the bright laid his soft palm 
on my face. 
Now I am but a handful of ashes, like the old 
Titan, 
Scattered and sprinkled about over the fields 
and the hills. 



106 PBOESUS BETB0B8U8. 

Alessandro, no more of the giant to-day, I must 
gather 
First my poor trunk and my limbs which have 
been strewn far and wide ; 
Henceforth I want but a drop of him, two drops 
or a wee third drop, 
Just enough for a flash or a low growl of his 
wrath . 
His inspiration I wish to possess without his 
convulsion, 
Give me the might of his glow yet under rea- 
son's restraint. 
Temperance now is my gospel, convincingly 
preached by this headache ; 
But to-morrow once more set me the pearl- 
beaded bowl. 
Too much divinity hath to-day overwhelmed me, 
poor mortal ! 
Still the God I must know, though he consume 
me in wrath. 



19. Palingenesis. 

Though these stones have been dug from the 
Earth and set up in museums. 
Thou must excavate still all of them just where 
they are. 

In thy life here digging them out of the dust of 
the Ages ; 



ECGE BOMA. 107 

This old world now afresh thou must discover 
thyself. 
Better it were to let it sleep on in the tomb it 
has chosen, 
If it be not born with a new birth in thy soul ; 
Do not disturb the dead, if thou canst not give 
resurrection ; 
Living and speaking with thee let them arise 
out the Past. 
Here in death I find life enwreathing the tomb 
with its figures. 
Over the coffined dust festivals sport in the 

stone. 
In a circle around this sarcophagus leap the 
wild dancers, 
Even the ashes repose mid a perpetual joy. 
Look ! the dead have a chorus of marble eternally 
moving ! 
Thou must divinity see smiting the world into 
nought. 
And so making it live and last in new shapes 
forever ! 
Learn the ways of the Gods, though they appear 
in their wrath. 
Though they strike thee down to the dust in the 
stroke of their presence : 
Men can know the Gods only by feeling their 
blows. 



§00k S^tDitb. 

Ex Urbe. 

I. Confession. 

Much have I told thee, O reader, that nears the 
forbidden, 
Much have 1 left untold sparing thy blushes 
and mine. 
Was the old world more innocent, or only closer 
to Nature? 
Having so much more of sin, have we so much 
more of shame? 
Still I would reconcile freedom of yore with 
modesty modern, 
Veil the sweet love of the South in the chaste 
soul of the North, 

(108) 



EGCE EOMA. 109 

Rome a Paradise thou, still hinting the Paradise 
naked 
Of old Adam and Eve, ere the first fig-leaf 
was sewed. 
I can feel already I am too sinful to stay here, 
Out of this Garden so fair I shall be driven off 
too, 
But not to-day. Arise once more, ye Gods and 
ye Heroes, 
Aud ye Goddesses too — I am not done with 
you yet. 

2. Vision of Castaly. 

Tell me no news of the rest of the world, keep 
the newspaper from me, 
Quitting the continent new, I would live back in 
the old ; 
Caesar's hardiest soldier, Ovid's luxurious rival, 
Horace's friend I shall be, sharing his wine and 
his song. 
Sipping the sparks of old Massic and singing sweet 
Lalage's laughter: 
When I am in old Rome, I an old Roman shall 
be. 
And to the school I shall go once more, to the 
poets of Latium, 
But not a book I shall read less than two thou- 
sand years old. 
Backwards further and further I move, for thus 
I move forwards, 



110 P.BOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Aye, beyond Rome I must go, she is not 
wholly her own. 
Every road leads to Rome, but mine, I can see, 
leads through it. 
Till I come to the source sending its beautiful 
rills. 
Now in my mind I look on the fountain of 
Castaly limpid. 
Whose clear waters reflect all the fair shapes 
of the soul. 
As like bubbles they rise from the bottomless 
depths of the Fancy 
Seeking a birth into Time with the rich dower 
of form. 
I beseech the bright Nymph to hold up before 
me her mirror 
That I may see the new brood whirled into 
life in my brain. 
That I may see them, and quickly may draw 
their shadowy outlines, 
Ere to Lethe they sink, whelmed at their birth 
into gloom. 
If but once they should fallback into that stream 
of oblivion, 
Orpheus e'en with his lyre cannot allure them 
to light. 
Now in my thought the world rises up as when 
ruled from Olympus, 
And to the beautiful halls each happy deity 
goes; 



ECCE BOMA. Ill 

All of the Gods are marching along in the 
fragrance of movement, 
While the Goddesses' forms echo the music of 
folds. 
There I catch a sly glimpse of the harmonies 
hidden of Venus, 
Eacking with rapture the look as she descends 
to the bath ; 
But to-day with Paris I was on the Idsean 
mountain 
Where three Queens undraped stood in 
divinity's glow. 
Unto my mortal vision revealing their beauty 
immortal ; 
Tinged with blushes divine, from me the 
judgment they sought. 
Long I looked at the movement of life in 
Castaly's mirror, 
Where is seen what transpires both on 
Olympus and Earth. 
Often I try to fasten in lines what 1 see in her 
waters. 
With a pencil antique limning Olympian 
forms ; 
Yet, O Castalia, beautiful nymph of the crystal- 
line ringlets, 
Not alone do I see images held in thy hair. 
But thee too I behold, thy translucence unselfishly 
giving 



112 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

To reflect other forms while thou art hidden 
thyself. 
Jealousy never thy candor distorts or thy purity 
darkens, 
Though a rival thou art to the Olympian 
Queens. 
Thee I long to behold in thyself, in thy fountain 
at Delphi, 
As thou risest above, out of dark chaos below, 
Showing thy beautiful form in the sheen of the 
God of the sunshine, 
Who from his temple near by sings thee his 
wisdom and song. 

3. The New Prometheus. 

Once my soul was a monk, and my body was then 
but his cloister. 
Daily I hid in my cell shunning the joy of the 
world; 
Out of my thoughts I plaited a whip of hundreds 
of lashesj 
Which would strike of themselves inwardly 
turned on my mind. 
My delight was to find new ways of being tor- 
mented, 
On my dissatisfied self madly I wielded the 
scourge. 
But in Rome I am free, in the city of monks and 
of cloisters. 



ECCE BOMA. 113 

Fire has driven out fire, yet it has left me 
afire. 
So a new trouble has subtly now taken the place 
of the old one, 
Still the delight, O the delight just in the 
twinge of its pain. 
Can it be that I have been playing the rogue and 
have stolen 
Under Amor's wild lead flames that belong in 
the skies? 
Let me confess — 'tis the fire of Heaven, and it I 
have stolen. 
Hidden it deep in my heart visible scarce to a 
God. 
Ah Prometheus, hoary old sinner of ages Titanic ! 
Still thy example misleads, nor can thy penance 
deter. 
Led by the beautiful flash and the sparkle I toyed 
with the flamelet. 
Wished it soon to be mine, slyly I took it 
along ; 
Then I went to my walk in the grove of Villa 
Borghese, 
Nursing the spark with my breath, dreaming 
of raptures to be. 
Jupiter, mightiest God of Olympus, jealous of 
mortals, 
Missed the fire from his hearth, when his high 
palace grew cold 



114 PEOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

From its absence — for he, though a God, is 
warmed in its ardor, 
Even descends from the skies for the luxurious 
flame ; 
Danae, Semele, witnesses be ye, with thousands 
of others. 
Who earthly lightning aroused in the Great 
Thunderer's breast. 
Casting his all-seeing eye through the nooks of 
his limitless domains, 
Me he beheld down below fondling in fancy 
the flame. 
Wrapping it over and over in layers of images 
Eoman, 
MakinsT it dance to a tune drawn from the 
music of Greece, 
As beneath the cool shade of a laurel, beside a 
clear fountain 
I was lying in ease shunning the heat of the 
day. 
With the soul in a dream there mingled the sound 
of the waters, 
As they murmured and sang with the sweet 
voices of nymphs 
Called Naiads — who chirp in the brooks and 
dance in the fountains — 
Water no longer assails but it encourages fire. 
All at once a vulture swept down through the 
branches umbrageous. 



ECGE BOM A, 115 

Sent by Olympian Jove, ruler of men and of 
Gods, 
And infixed in my heart his beak and eats of it 
daily, 
Daily it groweth again furnishing new his 
repast. 
Chained to a pitiless rock now behold me, a 
second Prometheus ! 
I forever am gnawed, never consumed or 
relieved. 
What can I do? — Good soul, await thou heroic 
deliverance, 
For thy Hercules comes, mighty endurer of 
toils, 
Who subdues the dread birds of the air for his 
people. I tell thee, 
Jove with his thunderbolt barbed can not detain 
thee in pain. 



4. Metempsychosis. 

Days come alike with the Sun, yet different some 
are from others. 
Some to the future belong, others go back to 
the past; 
All of to-day has been floating about me an old 
reminiscence, 
I have lived in a world born long before my 
own birth. 



116 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8 

And I am at this moment no more than a memory 
ancient, 
Which is straying around, lost in the present 
by fate. 
Hoary philosophers meet me and speak, Pytha- 
goras, Plato: 
'* Now you may know what we meant when we 
discoursed of the soul." 
This high hour is not of to-day, it is an odd 
moment of Homer, 
Which into sunshine was dipped once when in 
Chios he sang 
Thousands of years ago — perchance before him 
it was singing -— 
Now to the earth re-born, it has come singing 
to me. 
Through a long gallery built of the ceaseless 
addition of ages, 
Voices oft drop on mine ear that have reached 
down from old Kome; 
And as I go up the street and walk under arches 
triumphal, 
What is that shout on the air peopled with 
millions unseen? 
Yon red obelisk heavenward pointing its finger 
of granite 
Is still telling the tale once to the Pharaohs 
told; 
It is also a traveler, far from its home it has 
wandered 



ECCE BOMA. . 117 

Where it first saw the God kissing the land of 
the Nile ; 
Centuries long it stayed in its city of light by 
the River, 
City built to the Sun at the new dawn of the 
world. 
But the moment arrived when it too had to start 
on its journey, 
Rounding the circle of Earth, seeking to come 
to itself. 
Stopping at Rome it stood up for ages, then fell 
and was buried, 
But resurrected you see all of its body once 
more, 
Here by the Lateran patiently waiting for new 
transmigrations. 
For again it must fall, it must arise too again. 
What am I but a wanderer here, an obelisk, 
statue ! 
Mid these ruins I stray that I discover my- 
self ; 
I must see what I was when a Greek I was born 
or Egyptian, 
Pilgrim I come to my Rome seeking the shrine 
of my Gods. 
Soft flow the hours, O maiden, if fondly thy lips 
are attuned 
That they utter low notes borne from thy 
bosom of trust ; 



118 PEOBSUS BETB0B8US. 

For whenever I hear the tale of thy life and thy 
longing, 
It is the sound of a voice echoing down ancient 
halls ; 
And I behold the hoar shape from which thy soul 
is descended — 
The proud soldier of Rome who in thy words 
comes to life. 
So after thousands of years the spirit returns to 
the body, 
From its wanderings dark down in the realm 
of the shades. 
And once more it puts on new vestments of 
youth and of beauty, 
Fleeing dim Hades' abode, clad for the light 
of the sun. 
Of its former dear self it retains many dark 
recollections. 
Which still guide and forewarn, whisper of 
sorrow and joy; 
And the woman if she delight in some ancient 
action 
That enkindles the page where the high record 
she reads, 
Till her heart is wrapped in the flames of a pas- 
sionate genius 
Which with its power unknown makes her far 
more than herself — 
She was the hero, she was the soul that gave 
birth to the action 



EGGE BOMA. 119 

In the bright world long ago. But if the deed 
be a myth, 
Shaping to beautiful words the spirit of long 
generations, 
Words with high fantasy's stamp, coined by 
the Poet divine, 
Who can charm hoar fabulous shapes from the 
cave of old Silence 
Into the light of the Sun — then too that myth 
was her work, 
Sprung of her soul into flesh again dipping its 
fiery essence. 
Still recollecting the forms which it created of 
old. 
O my brave maiden, now tell it, for thou wert 
the singer heroic 
Of the glorious deed, hung like a lamp in the 
sky 
Of far-off antiquity — lamp that illumes all the 
ages — 
Yet with thy praises festooned, now a new glory 
it shines. 
In the olden republican times I can think thee a 
poet 
Framing fierce fables antique which first to-day 
I have heard 
Told with the glow enkindled alone of the primal 
conception, 
Firing the soul of the bard when he deep 
destinies sings. 



120 PEOEiSUS EETE0ESU8. 

5. An Old Legend Re-incarnated. 

Tell me a story — a story that touches thy heart, 
Roman maiden, 
For the atmosphere sweet, which is surround- 
ing thy thoughts, 
Filling the hours with visions of youth and ten- 
derest passion, 
I would breathe in by day, then I would dream 
in by night. 
From thy fancy let me but charm thy favorite 
legend, 
For I long to descend into the fountain of 
youth 
And to drink of its bright limpid waters just as 
they gurgle 
From their source, thy heart. There 1 may 
see deep below 
Images floating transparently chased in pearls of 
mild beauty, 
Which reveal to the eye lands that are filled 
with thy dreams. 
Rare is the flower of speech, just tipped with the 
dew of young honey. 
Which distills drop by drop from the sweet 
lips of the maid i 
Rare is the vision unrolled in the fount to the 
look of the drinker. 
Who would fain swoon away into that world of 
bright forms. 



ECCE BOMA. 121 

Eose-bud of Rome, here growing in fondness 
over the ruins, 
Which still furnish the soil whence thy fair 
bloom sucks its life, 
Whose dark roots sink down to the temples of 
Gods and of Heroes, 
And to the Present upbreathes fragrance that 
comes of the Past — 
Tell me a story while yet I can see by the glim- 
mer of sunlight 
Thy swift flashes of red wreathing thy lilies 
with love, 
Modesty's sky blushed through by gleams of 
innocent passion. 
Heralds announcing thy tale truthful to nature 
yet pure. 
'* In the time of old Rome there lived a beautiful 
lady. 
And in old Rome, you must know, every lady 
was fair. 
Now they are few, and none of them are so fair 
as the ancient ; 
Noble this lady was too, bearing a name that I 
love ; 
She was called Cornelia of Rome, 'tis the name 
of my mother, 
And has remained in our house long as a family 
name 
For the women, since we have come of her 
blood — we know it — 



122 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

In a straight line we can trace out of old Rome 
our descent. 
Well, this noble Cornelia, this beautiful lady I 
speak of, 
Also a dear mother was, mother of beautiful 
boys, 
Two of them ; no such beautiful boys can be 
found in the city 
Now, for the city has changed, people within 
it have changed. 
But how proud she felt as the mother of beautiful 
children ! 
Roman boys, perchance soon to be great men 
of Rome. 
Think all the day, and dream all the night of two 
pretty children. 
This Cornelia did, proud Roman matron of 
old. 
For they were boys — and not for a moment 
could she stop thinking 
What they were to become when they had 
grown to be men. 
Once some fine Roman ladies came to visit 
Cornelia, 
Finest dresses they wore, jewels and gems set 
in gold ; 
They besought her that day to put on her cost- 
liest garments. 
Covered with rubies and pearls - — stars cannot 
twinkle so bright 



ECCE BOMA. 123 

On the clear sky above — and then they begged 
and they coaxed her 
With them to sweep down the street showing 
her beauty and wealth. 
Oh, methinks these dames of old Eome were 
surely the mothers 
Of our women to-day, so much alike do they 
seem ; 
Often I notice that thistles and weeds spring up 
without planting, 
While the harvest dies out under husbandman's 
hand. 
But what answered Cornelia the Roman? These 
are my jewels. 
Pointing down at her babes, who were asleep 
in their crib. 
O the beautiful children — two boys ! methinks 
I behold them 
Lying with thick little arms folded in sweetest 
embrace. 
Think what it means — two boys ! when grown 
to be men they are Romans ! 
Senators greater than Kings, conquerors, too, 
of the world." 
So spake the maiden, till speech seemed lost in 
the flow of her fancies 
Floating away on a sea known to her vision 
alone. 
Still O maiden, I mark in thy words the mother 
of heroes, 



124 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

And thy kinship is traced not in the lines of 
descent, 
But in the spirit, more truly kindred than blood 
or the body, 
Stamping its seal on the act, clearer to read 
than the print. 
Deep is thy rapture to image thyself the mother 
of Great Men 
Born to rule the whole world, as from Olympus 
the Gods. 
Yes, thyself thou hast named, hereafter hold fast 
to thy title. 
Young Cornelia of Rome, mother of possible 
sons 
Like the old Romans, men of the mightiest will 
and of action : 
Thy great son, may he make Italy great as of 
yore ! 

6. Tiber and Arethusa. 

Swollen and angry seems always the brow of the 

God of the Tiber ; 
He has a right to his wrath if we but think of 

his lot ; 
All the drains of the earth and streams that wash 

alien countries 
Have been gathered by time into the torrent of 

Rome, 
To be sent down her channel afar to the limitless 

ocean, 



EGGE BOMA. 125 

Which doth lave every land round the new 
shores of the world. 
But now behold this fountain of joy that runs 
through the city ! 
Greek Arethusa has flowed under the sea into 
Kome. 
Where the Greek rivulet pours its transparency 
into the river. 
The stern frown of the God drops into dimples 

of joy; 
Thither I love to saunter at random along the 
bright border, 
Till the clear waters be lost, lost in the turbu- 
lent wave. 

7. The Two Muses. 

Two fair daughters were born to the ages, 
Camena and Musa; 
Giantess grew up the one, swaying all men to 
her will. 
While the sweet sister has always remained a 
blooming young maiden, 
Sixteen summers she has ; 'tis the old story of 
love. 

8. The Two Streams. 

Clear are thy fountains, O Hellas, as out of the 
hillside^ they gurgle. 
And in a crystalline stream flow through the 
valley and mead ; 



126 PBOBSUS BETB0B8U8. 

Small are thy rills, oft leaping along in channels 
of marble, 
Often reposing in grots under cool arches o'er- 
mossed. 
Larger than they, but turbid, is ever the rush of 
the Tiber ; 
Give me to drink of thy brook, small but 
transparent and glad. 

9, Looking Backward. 

Where do these temples look with iheir faces of 
pillars and friezes ? 
Where do these monuments point, with a set 
finger of stone? 
Where do these statues that fill with their forms 
vast halls and museums 
Turn when they whisper of home, hinting of 
destiny rude? 
Where but to Hellas, the happy abode of their 
freedom. 
Ere the Roman had come, thralling their 
beauty to use. 

10. The Sigh of Hellas in Rome. 

Rome, I have fed with peaceful delight on thy 
honey delicious, 
Daily I open new hives built in the ages of 
yore. 



ECCE BOMA. 127 

Dead long since are the bees that gathered these 
stores of enjoyment, 
Heliconian swarm, reared on the flowers of 
Greece. 
Still the sweet structure of cunning instinctive is 
not as they left it, 
Broken and scattered and stained are all the 
fragments so fair. 
Yet each fragment distills a clear liquid infused 
with the nectar 
That long since down to earth fell from the 
tables of Gods. 
Roaming amid ancient forests of pillars, now 
fallen and broken. 
E'en from the fissures and breaks I have been 
catching the drops. 
What delight at the draught went throbbing in 
waves through the body? 
Was it the mildness of art, or the mad wild- 
ness of wine? 
Ah ! this moment there follows the surfeit of 
gratification, 
Ruddy enjoyment now palls, Rome can no 
longer delight. 
List ! there is aught in these marbles that hints 
of an ancient estrangement, 
A low sigh may be heard out of the heart of 
the stones : 
'' We are but captives taken to grace a con- 
queror's triumph. 



128 PBOESUS EETBOBSUS. 

Out of a beautiful world which we had made 

for ourselves ; 
Here our lot is to seem and to serve in the house 

of a master, 
O for our Hellas once more ; O for our 

freedom and home." 



II. Art. 

Art must be a true worship of Gods, not merely 
enjoyment, 
Goddess is the high Muse, scorns to be used 
for desire; 
Dizened with jewels of strangers, her honor at 
once is suspected. 
Clothed she must be in the robe which she, a 
Goddess, hath woven. 

12. The Great Fall. 

Speak, O Qui rites, and tell me, ye Cassars, your 

fall, your great downfall, 
When into ruin the world sank with the Gods 

in the crash ; 
Eead me your doom, ye Senators, Censors and 

great Imperators, 
Kings in your palace once, some of you Gods 

in your fanes ; 
What did ye do, maimed rows of sad marble, to 

call up this judgment? 



EGCE BOMA. 129 

Misery broods in your pomp, beggary breeds 
in your homes. 
But what saddens me more than all the long 
pang of your city, 
Hellas, the fair, I behold lying in rags on the 
street : 
Her I now see as the beautiful slave that served 
in the temple 
Built by the conqueror Kome, with all the 
peoples of earth ; 
Free no longer and pure, she lost her heavenly 
figure, 
Though she was decked with the wealth ta'en 
from the spoils of a world. 
Forms and abodes of the Gods, she, a slave, no 
longer created, 
Once a Goddess herself, sprung of Olympian 
seed. 

13. A Translation. 

I am everything ancient and modern at Eome, 
the eternal ! 
Here on this spot where is all, how can I help 
being all — 
Past and future, the high and the low, the good 
and the bad, too? 
Lawgiver Koman I come weighing the law of 
the world ; 
Conqueror lordly of Britain and Gaul, I triumph 
in wine-shops; 

9 



130 PB0B8U8 BETB0B8U8. 

Orator ancient at times, thunder I Cicero's 
phrase. 
But I am now the new schoolmaster, old Latin 
poets construing 
Once again in my school; ye are my school- 
boys, O friends. 
Come, gay Horace with amorous Ovid, Catullus, 
Propertius, 
All of your verse I shall turn into plain En- 
glish at once: 
" Captive Greece was the beautiful mistress kept 
by Quirinus, 
Throned she lay in his heart, spurned from his 
morals and law; 
Thou wilt know the result. She debauched both 
his heart and his morals. 
While with her honor's loss, lost was her 
beauty divine." 



14. An Oration. 

Conscript Fathers of Rome and of Time, a speech 
in your Senate, 
One short speech — that is all — now I am 
ready to make — 
Not the plentiful silvery stream of the Orator 
Roman, 
But brief barbarous words shouting the cry of 
these stones : 



ECCE BOMA, 131 

Not enough, O Rome, to enslave the whole 
world to thy surfeit — 
Thou hast enslaved the Gods, slave thou art 
now to thyself. 

15. Premonition. 

Now I must leave thee, O Eome ; there is a loud 
clock in the city, 
Tolling the limit of time when the sad guest 
must depart ; 
Louder still I can hear the stroke of the clock in 
my bosom, 
Smiting with hammer of steel: now I must 
leave thee, O Rome. 

16. The Two Guides. 

As thy virtue, O Latium, is mad, so thy pleasure 
is beastly; 
Hellas enjoys and refrains sweetly together in 
one. 
Thou art, O Roman, either too good or too bad 
for my journey ; 
Thou, O Greek, art a man, come, let me take 
thee along. 

17. The Two Cities. 

Looking before me I see happy banks in the 
skies built of sunshine. 



132 PBOESUS BETJR0BSU8, 

Looking behind me I feel clouds in mine eyes 
full of rain ; 
Why are the heavens there full of joy, and here 
full of sorrow? 
Rome I am leaving behind, Athens is lying 
before. 

18. Retrorsus. 

Now, O Rome, is my path where point thy 
fingers of marble, 
Where thy speaking stones say is the land of 
their birth. 
Where is the home of the forms that uphold thy 
arches triumphal. 
Home of the urns of thy dead, wreathed with 
fresh flowers of life. 
'Tis the secret command of thy heart, O city 
imperial. 
Now the fountain to find whence is derived 
the stream. 

19. Prorsus. 

Swinging on high between two visions seemeth 

my journey, 
As the pendulum swings back from a tick to a 

tick; 
And on the clock of the world I am marking the 

weightiest moments, 



ECCE BOM A. 133 

As I sweep to and fro through the dead ages 

embalmed. 
Substance fades to a dream, but the dream soon 

hardens to substance, 
Huge Coliseum recedes, Parthenon rises to 

view. 



PART SECOND. 



Epigrammatic Voyage, 



(135) 



Could I but give to thee half the delight in read- 
ing these verses 
That I feel as I make all of them leap to my 
beat, 
Surely our friendship would be in this book for- 
ever recorded : 
Vain is the hope, thou hast too many other 
good books. 
Still I shall write it, doing my best to please two 
persons, 
Namely, myself and the God ; hardly the third 

I expect. 
RoMiE, Kal., Oct. 1878. 



(136) 



i00{i Jfirsl. 



Italy. 
1. 

On the Sea. 

All the sea was a smile and a twinkle was every 
wavelet, 
Cheerily flew the white sails big with the favor- 
ing breeze, 
And the ship — the new ship — bore away to the 
goal of her voyage, 
While the steersman in sport dallied with water 
and wind. 
Merrily under the touch of the rudder is rocking 
the vessel, 
Rising a little above, falling a little below, 

(137) 



138 PBORSUS BETR0B8U8. 

Eager to dance on the sea with the billow and 
romp with the sunbeam, 
While the wares in the hold safely to haven it 
brings. 
Epigrams, rise ! your voyage begins, now rock 
with the vessel, 
One with the sway of the ship, one with the 
storm and the calm. 
Be ye the soul at the helm, and be ye the voice 
of the helmsman, 
Be ye the sea and the land, be ye the present 
and past. 

2 

Festive processions of Nereids drawn by silver- 
reined dolphins 
Wind in the curls of the sea, curled by soft 
Zephyrus' hand ; 
Shell-blowing Tritons rise up and announce the 
approach of Poseidon, 
Then sink under the tide to the hoarse note of 
their shells. 
Look o'er waves to the line of yon blue, 'tis a 
festival splendid, 
Thousand of deities hoar float round Poseidon's 
moist car. 

3 

Royal Poseidon has harnessed his horses to his 
blue chariot, 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 139 

White flow their manes in the wind as they are 
racing to shore ; 
On the surface they play with the infinite move- 
ment of water, 
Dancing the dance of the sea over the caroling 
waves ; 
But as soon as they brush underneath on the 
strand's pebbly bottom, 
Broken and foaming they fall headlong against 
the hard beach. 
Noble thy steeds, O Poseidon, and ever the more 
to be valued, 
That no feet they possess which can step out of 
the sea. 



Eoguish, light-winged epigram, boldest rover 
of Hellas, 
Robber too of her sweets, lurking on all of 
her ways. 
Little pirate on poesy's ocean, now I have 
caught thee ; 
Give me some of thy spoils else I shall crush 
thee to prose. 



Wavelet, why dost thou seek to walk out of thy 
kingdom of waters, 
Where is woven thy robe out of the blue 
skies? — 



140 PBOMSUS BETBOnSUS. 

Nereid, why art thou trying to leave the gay 
train of Poseidon, 
Losing thy beautiful form at the first touch of 
the land, 
Thou wilt but flounder a moment among the 
rough stones of the shallows, 
Watery film are thy hands — they cannot cling 
to the earth. 

6 

The God's trident hath not the sole power to rule 
on the Ocean, 
A fair girdle I saw fondled and kissed by the 
waves ; 
Each of them sought it, lovingly pressed it a 
moment, then lost it ; 
O the great hand of the sea, how it would 
clutch for the prize. 
Trying to hold in its watery grasp that girdle 
inconstant. 
Which through its fingers would slip — vain 
was the task of a God. 
Laughing it swayed to the rise and the fall of 
the refluent bosom 
Sprung of the billowy spume ; here Aphrodite 
once rose, 
Here now she rises again from the wave and is 
free of her sea-robe, 
Stands at the helm of the ship, changes its 
course to her spell, 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 141 

Hanging her zone on the rudder ; I knew it as 
soon as I saw it ! 
Oft have I seen it on land, plaything of Eros 
her bov. 



Eros, I warn thee, in this epigram matical voyage 
I shall not take thee along, put up thy arrow 
and bow, 
Breathe not thy flattering breath on my words, 
stop caressing my fancies, 
Thou art too much of a boy, I am too much of 
a man. — 
But the sly rogue laughs hundreds of sweet little 
epigrams at me, 
Hundreds and hundreds they fly, filling these 
classical skies. 
He hath stolen my weapon poetic and turned it 
against me, 
As from the War-God he stole buckler and 
spear and the sword. 

8 

Epigram, tell me, gay charmer, the source of thy 

wonderful genius ; 
Turn now thy verse on thyself, thee by thy 

light let me see, 
And in a distich behold thy true face by double 

reflection ; 



142 PBOHSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Eise, Hexameter, there ; follow, Pentameter, 
too. — 
** Curious voyager, why break open my virginal 
treasure ? 
Touch but my two little lips making a mouth 
for thy kiss." 

9 

Thou must behold in the sea not merely the sea 
but the image 
Mirrored down in the deep, changing to forms 
of the Gods; 
Water, as water, is always insipid, without its 
reflection — 
The fair Nymph in the brook, Nereid under the 
sea. 
But if no Deity thou canst behold in the rill or 
the ocean. 
Peer once more in its glass, there thou beholdest 
thy face. 

10 

Epigrams scatter I over my page like the shells 
of the mussel 
Which on the bottom lie strown under the 
rollicking waves ; 
Reader, be thou my pearl diver, valiantly plunge 
in the waters. 
Say thy prayers first, ere thou sink down to the 
depths ; 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 143 

Then will a beautiful Nereid lay on thy finger a 
mussel ; 
Raise it and crack it ; perchance hid in the 
shell is a pearl. 

11 

Epigram, speed thee, be a little more epigram- 
matic, 
In but a distich's sweet kiss press me thy two 
tiny lips. 

12 

Water I saw once thrown on the sunshine in 
order to quench it ; 
All of the water was spilled, but the bright 
sunshine remained. 

13 

At a bright coal of fire a wasp grew angry — he 
stung it; 
His fine stinger was clipped, but the coal 
glowed as before. 

14 

Whither, O whither, my frolicsome boat, is the 

flight of thy swan-wings? 
Daringly enter this stream pouring down into 

the sea, 
Pouring down into the world through the gate of 

the past to the future ; 



144 PBOBSUS BETR0B8U8. 

Narrow thy course to its banks, wind with its 
turns through the plain, 
Till we reach in our voyage the highest Olympian 
sources, 

Sailing on sea and on land, sailing up mount- 
ain and sky. 

15 

In the Olives. 

As I passed underneath, there fell the gray leaf 
of the Olive, 
Pricked with a needle of frost, 'twas the first 
leaf of the fall ; 
Gently it lodged in my hair, and found too a 
frosted companion. 
Which had there stealthily crept, stealing 
along with the years. 
There lay the leaf, and it stroked me as if the 
soft hand of Minerva, 
Her sweet benison gave out of her favorite 
tree. 

16 

Why has the frolicsome Olive been called the 
tree of sage Pallas ? 
See the green branches of youth gleam with 
the silver of age, 
Poesy's juvenile buoyancy blent with grave 
wisdom's reflection; 
On each leaflet behold choruses danced to the 
sun. 



EPIGRAMMATIC VOYAGE. 145^ 

Then look up at the fruit on the twiss sus- 
pended by handfuls, 
Such is the Goddess' gift ; take it, 'tis thine, 
if thou canst. 

17 

Under the Olives I wander, silvery green is the 
sparkle, 
Dancing about on the leaves with the new * 
rays of the sun ; 
Fruit is just turning dark to mature along with 
the season, 
While the skipping gay hours diadems weave 
on the hills. 
Crude and green on the branches is hanging still 
many a berry. 
But this sun in the south quickly will ripen 
them all. 
Long I loiter delighted, though always I sigh for 
the harvest. 
As I look up at the limbs laden with layers of 
fruit. 
Tarry until the green leaf of the tree-top is 
struck by the hoar-frost, 
Not an olive matures till it be smitten by fate. 

18 

A slight frost often touches before the harvest 
will ripen. 
The crude growth of the tree softens to mild- 
ness and strength ; 

10 



146 PB0B8US BETBOBJSUS. 

From the foliage words of the Goddess are 

silently dropping, 
" Gather the fruit, O man ; hasten, thy harvest 

has come." . 

19 

On the Mountain, 

I can tell you a secret about the ascent of this 
mountain ; 
If from below you look up, why, it appears 
but one top 
Which you can easily reach, but it is a long 
series of summits, 
Each one struggling above with pleasant val- 
leys between. 
When you have reached one summit, there breaks 
overhead yet another ; 
Thus you laboriously climb, viewing a height 
ever new. 
Loiter, I pray, at times in the vales, in the folds 
of the mountain. 
There the flowers will bloom, there too the 
shepherd will pipe. 

20 

Crystalline folds, as they lie on the form of the 
Goddess, thou knowest. 
They can be seen on this mount resting serene 
in the sun ; 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 147 

What are the dingles and dells that roll in 
millions of wavelets 
Down the sides of the slope, but the mild flow 
of the folds? 

21 

What a wild symphony heard I to-day on the top 
of the mountain ! 
Foremost came the small bee piping soprano 
above, 
Then the big bumble bee slowly was droning his 
note, the deep basso, 
While the fly on his flute played a soft alto 
between. 
Thousands of fiddlers were daintily touching the 
strings of their fiddles, 
Large and little were there, tuned to the key- 
note of clime. 
All were at work on the flowers, not thinking 
they made any music. 
Still their work ever moved to the sweet music 
they made. 

22 

Stop and listen ! here is the mead and there is 

the mountain; 
Soft tones echo from both if thou wilt hear 

them alone ; 
Give up thy breath for a moment ! catch the new 

voice of all nature ! 



148 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Thou must not think of thyself, if thou wilt 
hear what it says. 
One deep note it becomes now, swelling above 
the whole landscape, 
But thou wilt lose it at once, if to repeat it 
thou seek. 

23 

Loftily over the brow of the mountain is hanging 
a ruin, 
Keady to tumble beneath, seeming to sink in 
itself ; 
Once it was peopled with monks, but now it is 
held by the Dryads, 
Who have re-taken their home, whence they 
were driven of old. 
Now I can enter the cloister, a member become 
of their order ; 
Bring me a hair skin of moss, wreathe me a 
cowl of green leaves. 
Clothe me, O Nymphs, in embraces, hang on my 
lips your caresses. 
That by your rites I become here in my cell a 
good monk. 
How I can sing in these ruins — let them fall 
inside and outside ; 
On this fresh cloistered moss how I can sleep — 
let it grow. 



EPIQBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 149 

24 

A dark ghost was flitting alone through the walls 
of the cloister, 
Mid the ruins it sped, vanishing soon into 
mist; 
What could it be ? The last monk. The fountain 
there laughed more clearly 
As the Nymphs of the stream saw the lone 
specter depart. 

Here I rest in the far-glancing, sun-roofed temple 
of Phoebus 
Spreading over my head through to the ends 
of the world ; 
Far below in the vale is the olive-green floor 
of the tree-tops, 
Pillars are mountains of stone holding the 
golden round roof. 
Such my Pantheon is now, where all of the Gods 
are assembled, 
Holding a festival free, in an Hellenic high 
strain. 

2Q 

With his fingers of gold now softly Apollo is 
feeling 
Over the breasts of the hills, drowsy as yet in 
the dawn ; 



150 PB0B8U8 BETB0B8U8. 

Like a fond waking husband he turns with a face 
full of splendor 
To his sweet spouse, the earth, golden caresses 
to reach. 
There she is lyhig with bosom burst out in the 
glow of his glances. 
She, with a smile half asleep, gives the response 

to his touch. 

27 

Here is the flower, the holder of honey, trans- 
mute it to verses; 
Six white leaves form a star, looking above at 
the stars. 
Often diverse is the size, and varied is often the 
color, 
Purple at times it becomes, vanishing faintly 
to blue. 
Inside golden it is, where shines too the bees' 
sweet treasure; 
Pluck it up from the ground, plant it anew in 

thy soil. 

28 

Small is the mountain, but of its sweets thou 
canst gather a mouthful, 
Or a hiveful perchance, if thou art truly a bee. 

29 

In the Vineyard. 

A stray bird came to Delphi and pecked at the 
grapes of the vineyard, 



EFIQBAMMATIG VOYAGE, 151 

Drunken with juice he began strangely to sing 
a new song. 

30 

Epigrams always are hanging over my walks in 
long clusters, 
Attic grapes they are, full of the juice of the 
clime; 
On the path of my journey I roam through antique 
vineyards, 
Many a bunch I receive plucked by the grow- 
er's own hand. 
All are not equally good in the bunch, some are 
small, some are green still, 
Pick them ofF one by one noting their various 
worth. 
Every grape must be crushed with a thought, not 
stupidly swallowed, 
If thou wilt feel the light glow lit in the grape 
by the God. 

31 

Drops that were craftily hid in the clusters now 
gather in gushes. 
Break from within the soft pulp out of the 
heart of the grape ; 
Long has the droplet been ripening there in the 
joy of the sunshine. 
Earth, air, heaven above, all have been giving 
their aid ; 



152 PBOBSUS BETEOESUS. 

And the old vine-dresser many a year has been 
training the branches 
Just for thy rapture to-day ; here thou hast all 
of their gifts. 

32 

Wouldst thou know the sweetest, sublimest 
lesson of Nature, 
What the Poet repeats in the keen flash of his 
words, 
What Divinity utters gliding a-down from 
Olympus, 
What, too, Philosophy says in the deep cast 
of her brow? 
This it is : from the soil sips each little mouth of 
the rootlet. 
From the rootlet sips uninterrupted the grape, 
And from the grape sips man the immortal, the 
top of creation. 
Dowered with reason divine, like in his form 
to a God. 
Rootlets are tipplers, intoxicated are all of the 
clusters, 
Bacchanals too are the vines, crooked and reel- 
ing around. 
See them rise from the earth to a deity, wreath- 
ing his body. 
Gently diffusing their juice ; note thy example, 
O man. 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE, 153 

33 

The coy blink of this virginal wine is my treasure 
forever, 
Maiden sincere as the word which she inspireth 
in hearts; 
Let me now touch, ere Time slip away, my lips 
to the virgin, 
Who doth smile in the glass brimming im- 
maculate love. 

34 

Mortal the eye is and so must remain, still it 
sees things immortal ; 
High Bacchic pomp it beholds in but a cup of 
the wine; 
And in each drop uplifted to lips from the fount 
of Castalia, 
Bathers divine it can see sporting white limbs 
in a stream. 

35 

By the Way. 

One, O Greek, was thine eye and thy soul, in 
a harmony splendid 
Both together were blent that they no parting 
allowed ; 
Sight was insight to thee, and thought a trans- 
spicuous image. 
Thou didst see with thy soul, soul too beheld 
with thy glance ; 



154 PB0E8US BETROBSUS. 

In thine eye as a mirror were seen all the colors 
of nature, 
Calmly reflecting therein depths that belong to 
the soul. 

36 

Poesy cannot behold her own flight to poetical 
regions, 
When she looks back at her wings, then is she 
fallen to earth; 
She must soar to the goal in her rapture, not 
think she is soaring, 
Fair she also must be, — let her not think she 
is fair. 

37 

Why so modest, my dear little epigram, poesy's 
sweet-heart ? 
I would thy lover be now, lisp me thy tender- 
est word. — 
Voyager, I cannot say I am modest, because I 
am modest, 
If I could tell what I am, then thou wouldst 
love me no more. 

38 

Fond epigrammatist, thou art my lover, be not 
my betrayer ; 
Leave me my virginal charm, else thou wilt 
spurn me thyself. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 155 

Seek not my maidenly mystery wooing the love 
of thy verses, 
Else not a line, not a word can I impress on 
thy lips. 

39 

Placid thy speech, O Homer, transparent it runs 
like the brooklet, 
Under the surface we see Nymphs in the fount 
of thy words, 
Freely disporting their forms, and revealing 
divinest perfections ; 
Now with the brooklet behold always the 
Nymph underneath. 

40 

To a nest of bowls I am fain to liken these poems, 
Outside and inside are bowls, each can be seen 
in the one ; 
And yet each is itself altogether, cannot be 
another, 
Thou must the inside discern, if thou the 
outside wilt know. 

41 

Hercules had two fathers, a mortal and an im- 
mortal, 
So had Theseus bold, Attica's pride and 
defense : 

So has every Hero filled with mighty endeavor, 



156 PB0BSU8 BETB0B8U8. 

He is the child of some God stealthily gliding 
to earth. 

42 

Why is the father of Heroes often the weakest 
of mortals? 
Why so seldom the sons have the endowment 
divine? 
Some invisible strand winds through our domestic 
relation, 
Which reaching up to the Gods, draws a 
Promethean spark. 
Two are the households of man and his kinship 
ever is double, 
To an Olympian hearth, though here below, he 



belongs. 



43 



Wake not love in these epigrams, be a little more 
careful, 
Leave thy caresses, O Muse, which thou dost 
drop in my lines, 
Well thou knowest my weakness, and laughest a 
verse at my purpose : 
A suspicion I have that thou wilt waylay my 
words, 
Catching them up from my lips before I can 
train them to duty; 
In these epigrams, Muse, wake not my love 
with thv kiss. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE, lo7 



44 

Art thou sick? Then go out and list to the little 
musicians, 
That by the hundreds now pipe under the half- 
bursted buds ; 
Hark to the strain ! they turn each tree-top into 
a fountain 
Welling melodious jets high in the air over- 
head. 
Find out what they are singing as they now 
greet the new spring-time, 
That will heal thee, my friend ; it is great 
Nature's first balm. 



45 

Guess me the maiden I love, the maiden most 
beautiful, dearest. 
Who hath never yet known that she is beauti- 
ful, dear; 
But if she turns and looks for a moment into her 
mirror. 
At her glance her own face vanishes out of the 
glass; 
I can stand all the day and gaze at her beautiful 
image. 
If she herself takes a peep, then she is fled 
from the world. 



158 PB0BSU8 BETB0BSU8. 

46 

Out of the sky came an eagle, it dived to the 
earth for a weasel, 
Then it soared to the clouds rapidly, passed out 
of sight 
Into ethereal regions ; soon from its eerie in cloud- 
land 
Down it fell dead at my feet, with its heart's 
blood on its breast. 
What had become of the weasel? From its high- 
soaring victim 
I could see it run off to its old hole in the 
rocks. 

47 

Voyage you call it : But tell me where are the sea 
and the vessel? 
Under my feet is no plank, points of the com- 
pass are lost. — 
Epigrams, friend, are the whole of my craft, now 
a ship, now a shallop, 
Thou2:hts are the timbers inlaid, fancies the 
fluttering sails, 
And I float my epigrammatical fleet on an ocean 
Laughingly yielding its wave to the soft breath 
of the Gods. 

48 

Reader, I deem thou already hast quit me thy 
voyager epigrammatic. 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 159 

Fallen perchance by the way, quite overcome 

by fatigue ; 
Still I often shall hopefully call thee as if thou 

wert present, 
With me a friend I must think, though there 

be really none. 

49 

Naples. 

On the strand overborne by the frown of high 
Posilupo 
Stood I and looked to the sea praying Poseidon 
to rise ; 
Soon came the God at my call in his chariot over 
the surface. 
Through the bright waves of the sea cutting a 
track of quick light. 
But as he neared the low shore and touched the 
firm sand of the shallows, 
Horses and chariot and God broke into foam at 
my feet. 

50 

In the soft arms of Poseidon is the dear home of 
the sea-nymphs ; 
Do not decoy them away from their abode to 
the land; 
Dost thou not see that no feet they possess to 
rise up from the waters ? 
Watch them far out in the main, sporting 
bright shapes in the sun. 



160 PB0BSU8 BETEOBSUS. 



51 



Naples, true is thy title to-day, thou art still the 
new city, 
Old thou never hast grown, though on thy head 
lie the years 
By the thousand. Neapolis, Grecian youth is thy 
dower. 
Which the old Gods to thee left in their 
retreat from the world. 

52 

On a hill whose summit looks over the sea, and 
whose forehead 
With fresh laurels is wreathed, flapping their 
leaves to the breeze 
Is embalmed the Latin Bee mid the bloom of his 
flowers, 
Whence such sweetness he sucked that we 
must seek him to-day. 

53 

Here are the vines introduced long ago from the 
vineland of Hellas, 
Here amid their embrace Virgil of Rome lies 
entombed. 
Who with Italian winepress extracted their deli- 
cate juices ; 
May he forever repose in the Greek fragrance 
inurned ! 



EP1GBA3IMATIC VOYAGE, 161 

54 

Grapes of sweet flavor I tasted to-day from the 
Mantuan vineyard, 
Which transplanted had been from their 
Hellenic abode ; 
Sweet were the Mantuan grapes, yet sweeter 
the thought of that vineyard 
Whence they were taken of old, whither the 
moments all throng. 

55 

Watch the gay festival pouring a torrent of joy 
down the Corso ; 
Hark ! what thunder is that rumbling beyond 
the clear sky ! 
Flower-girls, lazaroni, dancers, pulcinelli — 
Stop ! did the earth underneath quake to the 
beat of your feet ? — 
Pleasure's happiest poor-house, stronghold of 
King Macaroni — 
See ! a red flash in the sky glares on the city 
and land; 
Look off yonder, a dark bloody hand with thou- 
sands of fingers 
Reaches up from a peak, clutching at Gods in 
the skies. 
There stretched over this city now full of the joy 
of existence, 

11 



162 FBOBSUS BETROBSUS, 

Hovers destiny's hand, threatens as in the old 
world. 

56 

The Neapolitan butterfly danced on the heights 
of St. Elmo, 
Spreading bright wings to the sun, drawing 
the look by its tints ; 
When it lit on a flower, I slipped up slyly to 
catch it. 
But from my fingers it flew ere they could 
close on its wings. 

57 

What a story is read to thee daily, O beautiful 
Naples ! 
'Tis the Pompeian tale lying just under thine 
eye. 
Written in ruins whose letters are lines of tenant- 
less houses, 
Alphabet mighty of Fate carved on this hill 
. long ago. 
'Tis the old story of Hellas, the story prophetic 
of Nature, 
Thy new story may lie writ in this ruin, 
beware. 

58 

Pompeii. 

Language of Destiny, lettered in furious flames 
on this mountain. 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE, 163 

Was not then taught in the school, still it is 
hardly taught there. 
Keader, if not yet asleep in the rise and the fall 
of this voyage, 
Open thy senses afresh, now we are going to 
spell ; 
Wake! 'tis the hour to learn an alphabetical 
lesson 
In this wonderful book; here is the Pompeian 
school. 

59 

Ages on ages were working in Eome the mighty 
destruction, 
Which Pompeii befell in but a moment of 
Time; 
Rome, too, had her Vesuvius gathering fire and 
forces, 
Through her duration is strown what is here 
pressed to a point. 
There it is written in large, and here it is written 
in little. 
In the fate of this town might she have read 
her own fate. 
But she could not decipher the words of the 
flaming inscription, 
Which revealed her own deeds turned into 
symbols of fire. 



164 PB0BSU8 BETB0B8US. 

60 . 

O Pompeii, what shall we say to thee rising from 
ashes 
With thy body scarce seared, oft with the hue 
on thy cheek? 
Thou hast agces on a^es of death entombed in 
thy features, 
Still to-day thou art up, in thy old seat on the 
hill. 
Many believe hereafter will be resurrection of 
body, 
But of the old buried town, look, resurrection 
has come. 

61 

Wander at random through vacant doors and 
paths of the city. 
Lose thyself in the net woven of houses and 
streets, 
Till thy brain becomes Pompeii alive in its 
mazes ; 
Dreams have fled out the way, now thou art 
in the old world. 

From these stones worn deep by the tread of old 
generations 
Premonitions arise strangely suggesting our 
lot; 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE, 165 

Man IS mixed of a moment and of eternal dura- 
tion, 
So say thousands of feet stamping their trace 
in the rock. 

63 

Here you enter the Pompeian wineshop and ask 
for refreshment, 
Quickly the waiter responds, dips with a long- 
handled cup 
Through the small neck of this wine-jar piercing 
the slab of the counter; 
Cool and pure is the bowl, crown it again with 
a wreath. 

64 

This is the temple of Venus where once she was 
fervently worshiped, 
Beauty in figure divine as she arose from the 
sea ; 
Fain would I too be a worshiper, enter her 
temple this morning, 
Move mid her pillared grove to the fair idol 
within. 

65 

As we pass down the street, there opens the door 

of a mansion ; 
Through its interior peep, swiftly the vision is 

borne 
On the flight of the long colonnade to the green 

of the garden, 



166 PROBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Whither the columns are winged, but can not 

fly to the goal. 
Whose can it be? Thy dwelling, O Pansa ; 

pardon intruders; 
Long art thou absent from home ; now it is 

ours, here we are. 

When I beheld thee, Medeia, I seemed to behold 
the Greek woman 
Painted by artist of old from a strong face in 
his heart ; 
Her I now seek for in body, until I shall find the 
same features 
And imprint them within — image remains not 
a shade. 
This is the fruit of the journey: to see in the 
mirror Hellenic 
What the world once was, what is now fairest 
and best. 

67 

O the maiden Hellenic, each house in the town 
hath her picture ! 
Soon she comes out of the door, tripping the 
pavement along. 
Softly the waves of her garment roll down all the 
lines of her body. 
And the rich crown of her hair is by the 
Graces entwined. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE, 167 

Out of the folds of her robe there rises sweet 
fragrance of movement, 
As the bare forearm she lifts daintily from the 
white plies. 
What can you do now but follow? What I pray 
are you here for? 
At the turn of some street, quick, you may 
glance in her face. 

68 

O fair boy, around this urn where thy ashes are 
resting. 
Nymphs are dancing in glee to the mad flute of 
the Faun; 
Joyous was ever thy life, each day was the bloom 
of a banquet. 
Through this gate of the tomb on thou dost 
leap with a laugh. 
Still with this rout of merry musicians and dan- 
cers around thee, 
E'en old Hades will smile, all his dark grot 
will be lit. 

This is the Pompeian school-house where an- 
ciently swayed a grim master, 
Open still is the school, enter and study its 
book. 

Scholars have come and are gone, to-day they 
are coming and going. 



168 PB0B8US BETB0B8U8. 

Pedagogue too can be seen, if thou wilt glance 
at thy side. 
What is here taught do you ask? The reading 
and writing of ruin ; 

But what is learned from old bricks? Epi- 
grams, spell him the word. 

70 

Many an image doth lie in thy ashen embrace, 
Pompeii ; 
Statues repose there unviewed, till they awake 
in the sun ; 
Ancient legend, writ on thy walls, is born into 
color. 
Gems lie there in the earth, cut with the lines 
of a Grace. 
But of all of the images that lie hid in thy bosom, 
Greatest by far is thyself — Destiny's image 
art thou. 

71 

Destiny's workings within our world thou deeply 
dost image. 
We thy affliction lament, though we are blessed 
by thy pain ; 
For the Gods have done thee a wrong, but man- 
kind a blessing. 
Suffering smiteth the part that the great whole 
may be saved. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 169 



Destiny smiteth the one with her scepter, that all 
be forever ; 
Slayeth this moment of Time, that so Eternity 
be; 
Evil she is to the moment, but to eternity holy ; 
Wrecked she Pompeii then, hence thou be- 
holdest it now. 

73 

Vesuvius. 

Who is the giant now under Vesuvius near merry 
Naples ? 
Dead he is not but he breathes heavily as in a 
dream. 
What is he dreaming? Dangerous visions of fire 
and sulphur, 
As in some passion he rolls, turning from this 
side to that. 
Dead he is not, but alive, though just at this 
moment he sleepeth ; 
What will he do when he wakes? See the 
scarred face of the mount. 

74 

O Vesuvius, thy torn lips loudly speak a new 
language. 
Hot are thy thunderous words, breaking out 
deep from thy heart, 



170 PBOBSUS BETB0B8US 

Orator ancient, red is the stream of thy speech 
to thy people, 
Dark and fateful thy breath furiously winds to 
the Gods. 
What art thou saying, O Titan? Thy mighty 
foreboding interpret ? 
Aught there is underneath wrecking the world 
overhead. 

75 

Hesiod, seeing Vesuvius we have to see with 
thy vision, 
And to think with thy thought all this upheaval 
of fire ; 
'Tis thy song of the battle between the new Gods 
and the Titans, 
Clear thy hint underneath flows in thy speech 
as a rill. 
Look ! our pathway Hellenic has wandered now 
into thy poem. 
Here is the work of the earth, there is the 
word of the bard. 

76 

Here a peep thou canst take deep into the smithy 
of Cyclops, 
For the King of the skies see now the thunder- 
bolts forged 

Which he hurls in his wrath at the wicked. Then 
look down the mountain, 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 171 

Thou wilt behold all his foes — pierced they 
lie strowu with the shafts. 

77 

Titans I saw whose limbs had been scattered all 
over the mountain, 
Writhing still they lay skewered by bolts of 
high Jove ; 
There with bundles of limbs wound together fell 
huge Hundred-Handed; 
Knotted in wrath are his thews, vain is the 
effort to rise. 

78 

Often I wonder if still at some jar in the whirl 
of the ages 
That old war of renown is to be kindled afresh, 
Namely, between the Titans and Jupiter, near to 
Olympus, 
For authority's right over the sons of the 
Earth. 
If so, will the Olympian father again be the 
winner, 
Or on him will the hills this time be piled by 
his foes? 

79 

Jupiter's chain holds him down, but somehow 
he always recovers. 
Often he makes the attempt from his low bed 
to arise. 



172 FB0BSU8 BETB0BSU8. 

Battles have no end, though thousands of ages 
asunder, 
Titans put down in old Greece, will in new 
Italy rise. 
Battles have no end, they have to be fought 
over always. 
Victory masks in defeat, could we but see all 
the Gods. 

Fickle Victoria, daughter of Fortune, forever is 
changing 
Into the form of her foe, giving her plumage 
to him ; 
Bright are her feathers, strutting erect all over 
her body. 
But each tick of the clock strips a small quill 
from her wings. 
She in the happiest moment of triumph begets 
her own victor. 
Who will pluck her last plume, leaving her 
naked Defeat. 

81 

Mountain of fire that once overwhelmed the fair 

plain of Pompeii, 
Is thy master a God, or a fierce demon in 

wrath ? 
See thy best and thy worst deed into one action 

united. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 173 

Thou by destruction hast saved what else had 

perished by Time. 
Provident kindness looks out from the mask of 

wretched disaster, 
Evil and Good in one shape ever are fatally 

blent. 

82 

Agony, printed in Lava, is read from this side of 
the mountain; 
See how thousands of snakes lie intertwined 
round a heart ; 
Now they are cold and of stone, though once they 
upreared their long bodies. 
Writhing and hissing through flames in the 
fierce torment of pain ; 
Now they are but an image which has been 
moulded by Yulcan 
Deep in the smelted Earth where his dark 
forge is at work. 

83 

Vulcan doth mould in the underworld too, there 
ruled by the Titan, 
Fearful and vast are his shapes poured at 
the Cyclops' dark forge. 
Better I love his works that are made in Olym- 
pian workshop, 
Where he dwells with the Gods, filling their 
world with his forms. 



174 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Beautiful Venus, his spouse, there wreathes her 
laugh in his labor, 
Near him the Graces abide, casting their 
glance in his shop. 

84 

Homely Vulcan, begrimed is thy hand as thou 
smitest the anvil, 
Channeled through soot on thy front burst the 
great torrents of sweat, 
Shaggy the hair on thy chest upsprings like 
brush on the hill-side. 
And among Gods thou art lame, limping about 
at thy work. 
Still a God thou, whom all men will adore, for 
thou fixest 
Beautiful forms that would wilt, were they not 
touched by thy hand. 

85 

Look now back at the blow — Greek deities 
smote thee, Pompeii, 
For degrading their forms, ravishing wildly 
their art ; 
All their passions thou hast without their 
Olympian spirit, 
Gods for thy ornaments are, Goddesses, too, 
for thy lust. *' 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 175 

86 

O what joy in this epigrammatical voyage, what 
sorrow ! 
Out of two threads it is spun, both are in me 
and in thee, 
Both are in Rome and Pompeii, the pain and the 
pleasure of being 
One with the soul of all time, one with its 
bloom and decay. 
Epigrams, come, let us go, we must haste to the 
end of our voyage. 
Gladly and sadly we leave, ancient Pompeii, 
farewell. 

87 

The Adriatic. 

Roman, colossal thy will, gigantic thy virtue, I 
fear thee ; 
But thou canst not enjoy, senses will turn thee 
to swine. 
Why must a man be a demon in hell, or a saint 
in high heaven ? 
Why not a man on this Earth, dowered with 
body and soul? 
See, our voyage has strayed to the path of 
Grecian Ulysses, 
Who the Sirens could hear, yet of their talons 
beware ; 
And the magical draught he could drain of fair 
Qirce, the charmer, 



176 PBOBSUS BKTBOBSUS, 

Still he remained a true man, could even 
rescue his friends; 
Years upon years he stayed in the bower of 
sweetest Calypso, 
Never there losing himself, never forgetting 
his own. 
He has enjoyment, he has restraint too, both in 
one body, 
Both in one soul he unites, making the music 
of life. 
As it is sung in thy melody ancient, poetical 
Homer, 
Eocking my modern refrain on thy harmoni- 
ous seas. 

88 

Questioner, crafty Ulysses, subtlety made thee a 
skeptic. 
Intellect stirred up the doubt always at word 
of the God ; 
Boldly thou wilt not believe in the promise of 
Goddess Calypso, 
Till she has sworn the great oath by the dark 
river of Hell; 
And no faith thou showest at first in the words 
of the Sea Nymph, 
All the Gods thou dost doubt, till they have 
proven themselves. 
Even Pallas, thy mighty protectress, must show 
her own wisdom. 



EPiaBAMMATIG VOYAGE, 177 

Ere she could win thy belief that thou wert 
come to thy home. 

89 

With thy guidance I too have reached the bright 
land of Pheacians, 
Where Alcinous dwelt, wonderful monarch of 
eld. 
This is his island, upon yon hill overlooking the 
harbor 
He with his counsellors sat, grave with the 
thought of the State. 
Often about the true site of Pheacia the learned 
have striven, 
Playing at blindman's buff in the dark garret 
of lore ; 
Everywhere thou must see it, on land, on island, 
on mountain. 
Thou must see it in Greece, anything else is 
not seen. 
Mythic Pheacia, beheld by Ulysses, is actual 
Hellas, 
Imaged beforehand in words dropped from the 
lips of the bard. 
Borne from the thought to the deed by the hero — 
a prophecy splendid 
Of one beautiful world heralding others to be. 

12 



178 PBOBSUS METBOBSUS. 



90 



What a wonderful raft was made at the grot of 
Calypso, 
From thy cunning of hand shaping the thought 
of thy brain? 
That was the parent whose progeny now glides 
over the Ocean, 
As the bird in the air, braving Poseidon's fierce 
ire. 
Well may we pardon the wrath of the God 
divinely foreseeing 
How this child of that raft scornfully sports 
on his waves. 

91 

King Alcinous, thy fair palace has had fairer 
offspring ! 
Thou art ruling the world still by the beautiful 
form. 
Out of thy mansion majestic was born in a song 
the Greek temple. 
Sentineled round with a choir — Titans 
columnar of stone. 
Bearing forever their burden to hymns of a 
Parian measure. 
Wearing out heaviest Fate to a Pindaric high 
strain. 
Look I those boys of thy garden with tapers are 
moving to statues. 



EPIGRAMMATIC VOYAGE, 179 

Seeming to walk iuto stone while they are 
bringing the light; 
Hellas springs out of thy palace all sculptured 
with actions heroic, 
Even the God we discern turning to marble by 
faith. 

92 

Happy if each of these poems may rightly be 
called a small temple ! 
First the colonnade pass, then you will come 
to the cell ; 
If you enter the deepest recess, you will see the 
fair Goddess, 
And the worshiper, too, bent at her shrine in 
low prayer. 

93 

Poets, if they be poets, are makers, making an 
image 
Which is to stamp old Time into his thousand- 
fold forms, 
And each thing of the senses, each piece of 
indifferent matter, 
Sealed by their touch with a soul, draws a full 
breath of the Gods. 
Thou, old Homer, wert the first builder in Greece, 
the first carver. 
Afterward she could but turn fancies of thine 
into stone ; 



180 PMOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Architects followed thee, building thy poem aloft 

into temples, 

Sculptors followed thee too, thinking in marble 

thy line. 

94 

On thy watery way I am sailing, endurer Ulysses, 
I look down at the waves, there is the scowl 
of the sea, 
I look up at the storm-cloud, here it shattered 
thy vessel, 
Yonder I see too the height which then encour- 
aged thy heart. 

95 

Wise Ulysses, thy work has been done for thyself 
and the ages, 
Thou has suffered for us, all who may read of 
thy pain ; 
Fighting thy desperate battle with Fate, thou 
hast fought, too, our battle. 
Freeing thyself in thy deed, us in thy word 
thou hast freed. 
Such is forever the hero, we share the reward of 
his sorrow, 
What he has done for himself, is for the rest 
of the world. 
When through Hades he goes, he takes us too in 
his journey. 
When he to Ithaca comes, we are along, here 
it is. 



EPiaBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 181 

95 

The Outlook. 

Eeader I beg thee to step to my place on this 
ship and look forward ; 
Gladly to thee I would give all that belongs to 
myself. 
Over the light-curling ripples is sportively rock- 
ing the vessel, 
On the sea to the East, whither our voyage 
doth tend. 
Now we have come to the water once ruled by 
the might of the Sea-god, 
Who in his chariot of waves rolled through his 
stormy domains. 
Who could rouse up the soul of the Sea with his 
trident or calm it ; 
Now we have entered the world sunnily built 
of the Myth, 
Slowly transmuting itself from the fancy down 
into the senses, 
Fables of ages we see drop into Nature's own 
garb. 
Look far out on the line of the waves, there rises 
Poseidon, 
Heaving the billows suggest presences subtle 
within, 
Proteus ancient, daughters of Nereus, thousands 
of daughters. 



182 FBOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

Triton, who blows on his shell to the deep 
music of seas, 
Old Oceanus, Tethys the mother with floods of 
her children. 
All know their worshiper new, peer from the 
wave and salute. 
It is sunrise, but in front of the sun is a mountain, 
Piled on its top lie the clouds bordered with 
fringes of beams ; 
Helios cannot be seen now, still thou wilt know 
it is sunrise. 
Out of an opening deep slants a long armful 
of rays. 
And from many a crevice are breaking great 
fragments of splendor, 
Which I would catch up in speech, turning 
their sheen into verse. 
But O behold ! before thee is resting the sunland 
of Hellas, 
Bursting the mist of the morn over the space 
of the sea. 
Clouds have left but a belt of thin gold bent 
round the horizon, 
Mountains are singing a song from the high 
seats of the Muse ; 
Leap to the shore and gather the world's most 
radiant moment. 
As it here shone in the past, here it is shining 
to-day. 



EPIQBAMMATW VOYAGE, 183 

96 

Corallion, see yon cloud in the heavens above 

thee : 
It is rain or snow — chilled are its drops or 
are warm? 

1 would lilie to be rained from the clouds down 

into thy window, 
Or a snow-flake be — drop on thy lip and there 
melt. 

97 

Eros, much of my life and my lay to thee I have 
given ; 
Faithful vassal in verse, 1 would repose now 
awhile, 
Till I write these epigrams. Hear! to these 
wandering children 
Would I tranquillity lend, joys of a ramble in 
spring 
Mid the quiet of hills, in the golden repose of 
the sunbeams. 
Voiced with low murmur of brooks, far from 
thy passionate call. 
Later again from thy torch light a fire, a new fire 
in my bosom. 
Fiercer than ever before kindle my tongue to 
a flame. 



184 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

98 

Now we are passing from Italy fair into beauti- 
ful Hellas; 
How shall we cross the gulf over the roar of 
the waves? 
Is it a bridge that I see or is it a phantom of 
fancy ? 
Eros has built it, I know — to his sweet guid- 
ance I trust. 



Pastorale. 

CORYDON. 

Where hast thou been, O Tityrus, where hast 
thou been, errant shepherd? 
For thou hast fed on some sweets that in the 
mountain grow wild ; 
Fragrantly wreathes thy breath as it subtly per- 
vade th the cabin. 
Filling with incense the air fit for the home of 
a God; 
And thy words, too, thy words are tenderly laden 
with fragrance. 
As they drop from thy tongue when thou art 
telling thy tale. 

(185) 



186 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Strange that the sound of thy voice is transfused 
with the odor of flowers ; 
Tell me, where hast thou been, Tityrus, where 
hast thou been? 

Tityrus. 

Wandering lone in my journey I came to the 
ridge of Hymettus, 
And ascended the hill thence to look over the 
plain ; 
There I lay down to repose in the shade mid the 
herbs and the flowers, 
Whiling the hours away watching the bees at 
their work. 
Thence I followed their flight by the hum of the 
air of the mountain, 
Till I came to their stores which I then sipped 
to my fill ; 
And I have learned how to find the sweet treas- 
ures of blooming Hymettus, 
Daily now honey I have, else I am sure I 
should die. 

CORYDON. 

Thither, O Tityrus, let me go with thee, I too 

have a longing 
To behold the fair mount hiding such wealth 

in its rocks. 
Give me to silently breathe of the air of the 

thyme-scented hillside, 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 187 

And at melodious work golden bright hummers 

to see 
Driving their wings in the sunbeams; through 

the rocks let me follow, 
Till I may taste the sweet drop stored in 

Hymettus away. 

TlTYRUS. 

Corydon, go — thou must find for thyself the 
sweets of Hymettus, 
But before thou set out, treasure this warning 
I give : 
Twain is the being of man, composed of the soul 
and the body. 
Twain is Nature herself, made up of good and 
of bad ; 
And Hymettus is twain, of the bees and the 
goats the one parent, 
Both thou must take by the way, if thou dost 
wish to be all. 
Sip the sweet honey drawn by the bees from the 
heart of the flowers. 
But thee I warn — thou wilt pass through the 
rough tract of the goats. — 
Yonder comes Phoebe, the shepherdess lonely, 
still she is flouting, 
I must be off to my flock — farewell, my 
Corydon, go. 



188 PBOBSUS BETB0BSU8, 

COEYDON. 

Shepherdess, hear me, now is the spring and thou 
art the flower, 
Hoary old Time with his scythe tarries to look 
at thy bloom ; 
I can see him standing at rest before the young 
harvest, 
What a glow in his face ! ardor is burning his 
veins. 
Blame him not, he grows young in thy youth, 
turns red in thy rose-bud ; 
Not a word thou hast said, still thy sweet 
whisper is heard. 
Now I too have to yield, and answer thy bloom 
with my blossom, 
Come, the whole world is a flower which we 
are plucking just now. 

Phcebe. 

Shepherd, pick up thy crook from the ground, I 
pray thee, be modest ; 
Go thy way to thy herds ; look, they have need 
of thy care. 

CORYDON. 

Finest droplet of sweetness is sipped from the 
earth by the flower, 
On the flower alights, sipping its treasure, the 
bee : 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 189 

From the stores of the bee sips man, of sippers 
the highest, 
All the sweetness of earth he must distill into 
life. 
Soil and flower and bee are a channel for fount- 
ains of nectar 
Keady to gush in thy mouth ; touch now thy 
lips to the stream. 

Phcebe. 

Modesty, sweetest of maidens, is not aware she 
is modest ; 
When she knoweth herself, then she is never 
herself. 

CORYDON. 

Modesty's speech is always a silence that tells 
she is modest; 
Never declaring her own, hath she the sweetest 
of praise. 

Ph(ebe. 

Never can Modesty, e'en in a dream, proclaim 
her own nature ; 
With but the word she is lost, fled at the 
sound of her voice. 

CORYDON. 

Spring has now come, she covers the prostrate 
earth with caresses, 



190 PBOBSUJS BETBOBJSUS. 

Show me the lover who yields first to the 
thrill of her lips ; 
I believe it to be this willow. Look at the 
leaflets 
Breaking out over the bark, at her soft pas- 
sionate touch, 
Row after row ; then glance at the willow-bound 
brook in the meadow, 
Far you can follow its bend, traced in the 
foliage new. 
Next in her love is this group of saplings, fair 
youths of the plantain. 
Dancing a chorus of twigs tuned to her amor- 
ous breath. 
This old oak is the last of the forest to yield to 
her rapture, 
Bare still as winter his boughs, fringed with 
dead leaves of last year. 
But even he is beginning to smile and respond to 
her kisses. 
See this outsjushinoj bud throbbed from his 
savage hard heart. 
Heart of oak, yield thee, this is the season of soft 
Aphrodite, 
This is her land ; stout Mars threw down his* 
shield at her glance. 

Phcebe. 

Nature is now a fair maiden who dresses herself 
for the marriage^ 



EPWBAMMATIG VOYAGE, 191 

Come and look at her thus, all her old lovers 
she lets 
Into the secret of her betrothal that comes with 
the spring time, 
She will take no offense, modestly peep at her 
ways. 
Over her body she draws in her triumph a flowing 
green garment ; 
Emeralds under her touch burst from each bud 
on the bough ; 
Garlands of blossoms she winds round her bosom, 
velvety, vermeil. 
Here they are white with her hand, there they 
are blue with her eye. 
Ha ! the bright face of the bridegroom peering 
just over the mountain ! 
'Tis the new sun from the skies flinging his 
gold on her path. 
Now her song she begins, her sweet passion from 
all of the tree tops, 
With her each bird on the twig chants its own 
bridal refrain. 

CORYDON. 

This, sweet love, is the fairest moment of spring, 

this moment ; 
Soon it will pass on its way ; quick, let us go 

to the fields. 
Where it will tarry the longest around the new 

tops of the woodland. 



192 PB0B8US EETB0B8US. 

Over the roll of the hills vanishing into the 
haze. 
All the year has suddenly bloomed in this day, 
in this minute, 
The whole world is a flower, fragrantly blow- 
ing just now. 
Every rise of the sun hath seemed in some joy to 
look forward, 
This is the moment it saw far in the glow of 
its eye. 
All the days of the year have been climbing 
above to this summit, 
Now each tick of the clock sadly must knell 
their decline. 
But thy journey of life has now touched its most 
beautiful moment. 
Hold it fast in thy heart — that is thy con- 
quest of Time. 

The Trio. — Finale. 

Sweet was the voice of the shepherdess, tender 

the word of the shepherd, 
She always looked on her babe, he always 

looked on his spouse ; 
Under the shade of a plantain she nursed her 

first little infant. 
While the lambs lay around shutting their eyes 

in the sun. 
Thou, young wife, art born over again in the life 

of thy offspring, 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 193 

Motherhood too is a birth, mother thou art and 

a babe. 
Mark ! each suck of the stout little lips at thy 

plenteous fountain, 
Each little kick on thy heart changes thee into 

thy boy. 

13 



i0ak Swnnb* 



Hellas. 

1 

Each faint rustle of branches above is a Goddess' 
whisper. 
Each petty murmur of brooks is a low laugh 
of the Nymphs, 
And a sweet little epigram steals from the glance 
of each maiden. 
Dew drops hung on each leaf are the pure tears 
of the Muse. 
But the miracle is, thou too art becoming a poem 
In this clime of the Gods ; wonder, O man, at 
thyself I 

(194) 



EPIQBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 195 



Here on this spot knit together are sea, and valley, 
and mountain, 
Here is the youth of this plain by the old hills 
overlooked, 
Here is the joy of the senses, but mingled with 
warnings of wisdom , 
Here are the flowers of Spring wreathing the 
fruits of the Fall. 
Hellas, a universe thou ! so small and yet thou 
art able 
Clearly to image the world, which, though it 
was, is to be. 



Hellas, I look at thy body now lying down under 
my vision. 
Over thy bosom I peep, heaving to mountain 
and peak; 
Athens, I see thee, the head of this beautiful body 
of Hellas, 
From the blue waves upraised, cushioned on 
violet beds, 
Brain-born child of the brain-born daughter of 
Zeus the Olympian, 
Who hath named thee her own, doubly en- 
dowed with her mind, 
Fathered of father of Gods, and mothered of 
mother of wisdom ; 



196 PB0B8US BETBOBSUS. 

There is Acropolis too, which is thy battle-lit 
eye, 
Glancing afar on the sea, yet smiling on blue 
Attic hill-tops ; 
Of this Athenian eye look in the pupil so clear, 
That is the Parthenon, sunlit, reposeful, the 
Goddess' dwelling 
Out of it flashes a beam lighting the soul of 
the world. 



Quarrymen seemed I to hear as they smote the 
deep rock of the Muses, 
For the pure white leaf on which to grave a 
new word; 
Often the hammer resounded afar through the 
vale of Ilissus, 
Temples and Gods into life moved at the sound 
of the stroke. 
Over the water came echoes from Kome, en- 
feebled by distance, 
Laden with dust of the past Europe gave 
answer to Rome. 
Last came the echo of hope, unbodied it rose 
from the future. 
Crossing Atlantic tides mightily heaving be- 
tween. 

5 

To the violet summit I climbed of strong Lyca- 
bettus, 



EPIGRAMMATIC VOYAGE. 197 

Bound are its sides with the rocks made for 
eternity's walls; 
There. I picked but a weed as it struggled alone 
through the crevice, 
Eaised it up to my lips, thoughtlessly strolling 
along. 
But how gracious the flavor that cunningly 
touched all the senses — 
Flavor distilled by a weed merely from Attica's 
rocks. 

6 

Mad are my eyes ! to-day they are merrily slaves 
of my fancy ; 
A Greek maiden I saw who through the ages 
had dropped ; 
She was one of the forms that danced in the 
chorus of Pindar, 
And she sang his high hymns, moving to music 
of flutes. 



Merry Anacreon, many an epigram tells of thy 
days and their joyance, 
And thy epitaph too ever is written afresh; 
Wine and Love and the Muse made thy life one 
intoxication, 
Even thy death is a feast lighting grim Hades 
with joy. 
All made thee drunk, the twitter of swallows, 
the chirp of cicadas, 



198 PBOBSUS BETR0B8US. 

Love of maiden and youth, gift of mad Bacchus 

as well. 
Nature becomes a melodious banquet, reeling in 

verses, 
Koses and ivy and vines twirl round thy lines 

with a laugh. 
But the most maddening draught to thyself and 

to me is thy poem, 
A true singer thou art, on thine own song thou 

art drunk. 

8 

Far I rambled to-day through the grove in the 
vale of Kephissus, 
There in the Olives I found hidden a black- 
berry grot, 
Laden with fruit was each pliant bush, yet hung 
with fresh blossoms, 
Dark were the berries that shone through the 
white wreath on the stalk. 
Now it is winter, yet see the full fruit alongside 
of the flower ! 
Ripeness of age in this clime has the fresh 
blossom of youth. 
I approach the fair harvest desiring to taste the 
new flavor, 
Also the fragrance to scent breathed from the 
flowering shrub. 
Heigh ! what a rustle of wings is flapped from 
hundreds of birdlings. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 199 

Who a festival held hidden in berries and 

buds. 
Far through the orchard they scatter, then drop 

on the tree-tops; 
Hark ! what a melody trills out of the silvery 

leaves ! 

9 

O the mad Attic joys now dancing aloft on the 
mountains ! 
And the gentler delights tripping through 
forest and stream ! 
Armies of happy existence move out of the trees 
and the fountains, 
Whole new peoples spring up over the emerald 
floor, 
Slipping into the world for a moment, then slip- 
ping out of 't, 
Hark, the new song they begin suddenly over 
my head. 

10 

Scattered along on my journey are many old 
fragments of marble. 
Showing a crystalline smile on the sere face of 
the ground ; 
Still they gladden the wanderer mid the dull rub- 
bish around them. 
Though they be but the chips left by some 
workman of old. 



200 PBOBSUiS BETB0BSU8. 

These were the fragments imprisoning sunny 
Ionian columns, 
Till by the chisel set free out of the fetters of 
rock; 
These were the pieces in which was nestled the 
form of the Goddess, 
Look once more at the shell whence the great 
Pallas escaped. 

11 

Once this plain, now so rocky and thirsty, was 
full of dense foliage , 
Eich aviaries of song were all the tops of the 
trees, 
Whence a perennial runnel of music ran down 
from each leaflet. 
Nourishment sweet for the tongues lapping 
melodious dew. 
Still I can see in this soil green sprouts of many 
a sapling 
That would the grove restore where the high 
singers once lodged. 

12 

Look over Attica ! deserts of rock are her fields 

and her highlands ; 
Orphaned of warblers she seems, orphaned of 

trees for their seats ; 
But a sharp search will discover still many a little 

low bramble, 



EPIGRAMMATIC VOYAGE. 201 

Wherein birdlings sit piping a wee tender note. 
When to-day I had found a green bush, it was 
full of young singers 
Warbling some old Attic chimes tuned to 
ancestral high strains. 

13 

Through Attic meadows I stroll; I come to a 
grove of broad poplars 
Where the shepherd breeze plays a low note on 
his pipe; 
Round the roots of the trees is running on pebbles 
the brooklet, 
Murmuring strains to the brink, fresh from the 
home of the Nymphs. 
But the tree-tops have given a refuge to sweet 
Attic singers 
That from their leafy abode throw out a 
fountain of song ; 
List to the wealth that they fling on the air in 
melodious revel. 
Hundred-throated with joy in the debauch of 
their strains. 

14 

On this classical soil one cannot help being an 
augur — 
Watches the feathery flight, lists to the 
humming of wings, 



202 PBOBSUS BETR0R8US. 

That he may find out the will of the Gods and 
set it to music : 
Nature is deity's hymn, folding the earth in a 
song. 

15 

Poesy is, O reader, not merely the copy of 
Nature ; 
Nature's voice she must win, breathing it into 
a word ; 
But that word has Divinity's soul in the body of 
Nature, 
From whose lips you must catch inward the 
strain of the God. 



16 

Often before have I rambled through fields in the 
Spring, said the shepherd ; 
But the green grass-blade to me was but a blade 
of green grass ; 
Or, I thought it was good for a spear of dry hay 
in a bundle, 
Which would nourish my flock when the bare 
winter had come. 
Now to my glance, as I wander around the green 
Attic meadows, 
A new being it springs suddenly up at my feet. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 203 

17 

Poem I never could relish that babbled of Nymphs 
and the Muses ; 
Lifeless they were to the eye, meaningless unto 
the soul ; 
But in this soil they now rise as of old to the 
vision Hellenic, 
They each moment are born, breathing, yea, 
speaking to me. 
Seize them thou must as they spring into life in 
the trees, in the fountains ; 
Set them no longer to grind, bound to the 
treadmill of verse. 
Leave them alone if thou art not able to merrily 
catch them, 
Bathing in the lone brook, singing their note 
on the hills. 

18 

Gently the rill flows over white pebbles of Pentelic 
marble. 
Into the Olives it winds vanishing under the 
leaves ; 
See the clear stream with a flow like the folds of 
the Pythian priestess. 
As to the altar she goes hung on the thought of 
the God. 

19 

Winged are words, O Homer, but feathered from 
various pinions; 



204 PROBSUS BETB0B8US. 

Some have the eagle's wing, darting adown on 

the prey ; 
Some have the buzzard's, but hark ! altogether 

the most have the screech-owl's; 
Be the small humming-bird's mine, always he 

hums while he sips. 

20 

Winged is ever thy word, O Homer ; such is thy 
vision 
That thou beholdest it fly, sped on its way by 
the Muse ; 
Winged thy word, O bard; and, propelled on the 
breath of thy music, 
Soars aloft with a thought tuned to the flight 
of the spheres. 

21 

Poet is he who to speech transferring the image 
of Nature, 
Therein hidden transfers also the form of the 
God. 

22 

This is Hellas, the thyme you can pluck from the 
stoniest hillside ; 
Thyme here grows from the rocks, thence all 
its fragrance it draws. 



EPIGBA31MATIG VOYAGE. 205 

23 

What is the highest of Nature, the noblest of 
things of the senses? 
What but this body of life ? said the fair Greek 
to himself. 
Let it be trained until it become a mirror trans- 
parent 
In whose movement you see all the fine work 
of the soul. 

24 

No, thy form was not made to be stretched on 
the cross of distortion. 
But for the Grace's abode joined to Apollo's 
clear rhythm ; 
Still the Poet can hear, as he notes thy victorious 
movements 
Hymning thy body's refrain, melody deep for 



his song. 



25 



'Tis the Barbarian's mark to behold his own 
shame in his body, 
And to hide it in swathes lest it ofi'end the 
clear eye; 
But the Greek soul has purified body to motion 
of spirit 
That the immortal Gods take it with joy as 
their own. 



206 PB0B8US METBOBSUS, 

26 

Tender verses I pluck on my path from the tip 
of each leaflet. 
From enfolding soft buds sip I the dew of the 
morn, 
Sweet little epigrams lightly I suck from the lips 
of each flowret, 
All the sweet treasure I drip into a honeycomb 
rare 
Made out of hundreds of cellules with geometric 
precision ; 
Still from the clear waxen fount gushes the 
heart of the flowers. 

27 

Slowly I climb to the top, the rest of the heights 
lie below me, 
Which, as I looked from the plain, seemed very 
lofty and great; 
Yonder I was, I reflect now, laboring joyfully up- 
ward, 
There on a stone I sat down, taking repose 
from my toil. 
Now I glance back from this seat where I rest, I 
write a short poem. 
Brave little epigram, up — quickly advance to 
the top. 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 207 

28 

Many a new-born kid you may see on the rocks 
of Hymettus, 
Dropped by the mother there suddenly touched 
with the pang 
Ushering life into light; then quickly she turns 
to her offspring 
With a fond gleam from her eye kindled by 
Nature's deep joy. 
At a draught of milk from the udder young 
knees will stiffen, 
Thousands of kids in their sport leap on the 
sides of the hills. 

29 

New Hymettian quarries of marble have lately 
been opened, 
See the laborer there cleaning the rubbish 
away 
Where was the cloister. At noontide in the calm 
shade of its ruins 
He will nap for a time ; this is its very last use. 

30 

On Hymettus thou still canst behold the remains 
of the quarries 
Which for the marble were wrought, bringing 
it out to the sun j 



208 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Now deserted they lie, filled up with the rubbish 
of ages, 
Yet beneath all the waste wait the old treasures 
for light. 
Open the quarries once more now hid in the heart 
of Hymettus, 
Bring out its crystalline stores, still it has 
temples and Gods. 

31 

Poesy dost thou find in thy strolls on rugged 
Hymettus ? 
Why, the mountain is bare, harvest it has but 
of stones. — 
Yet the bee will find on these rocks the sweetest 
of honey ; 
Out of their caverns and creaks hives he will 
build for his stores. 

32 

We may behold the mythical world thou didst 
live in, O Homer, 
From Hymettus the blue looking across toward 
Troy; 
All the Gods are astir now, and, summoned to 
hold their assembly, 
Rise in the sound of the sea, move in the song 
of the land ; 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 209 

And to me, the poor mortal, Hermes is bringing 
their message, 
Each little thought of the heart is a light waft 
of the God. 

33 

Yonder I see that I strayed as I look from the 
top of the mountain. 
Tarried too long for the flower, not long enough 
for the fruit 
Of my journey to ripen in sunshine : double my 
error ; 
Still I had to stray there, if I would mount to 
this height. 
Many the lower small summits that swell over 
graceful Hymettus, 
Some with their blossoms and bees, some with 
their thistles and thorns. 

34 

In my ramble I went far astray in a gorge of 

Hymettus, 
Now I see my mistake plain as the sun on yon 

rock. 
And I wonder how I could lose the clear lines of 

this mountain, 
All of which seem to direct straight to the 

beautiful goal. 
What seems easy is hardest, what seems near is 

most distant, 

14 



210 PR0B8US BETBOEtSUS. 

Sunlit Hymettus, to-day thou art my image of 
life. 

35 

Two are the sides of Hymettus, O wanderer ; 
steep and ungainly 
Is the whole slope of the mount, when from 
fair Athens it turns ; 
Yet how graceful and gradual is the descent to- 
ward Athena's 
Marble abode, where she lies resting on violet 
beds. 
But deceive not thyself by the view, this way is 
more distant, 
It to the temple doth lead which the wise God- 
dess indwells. 

36 

Yes, I saw the coarse goats as they fed on the 
top of Hymettus, 
Browsing the live-long day on a mere bramble 
of thorns 
Whose toothed leaves ran out to a point in a 
truculent briar; 
Still the goats would devour leaflets and twigs 
with the spines. 
How to live on the bramble that chokes up the 
ways of the Muses, 
The example is here — one must be changed 
to a goat. 



EPIGBAMMA TIC VO YAGE, 211 

37 

What ! is it true that foul goats now feed on this 
honey-dewed mountain ? 
Yes ; for the note of a Muse list to that sensual 
snort. 
Here they too have been lodged, just where the 
high summit is highest, 
And in the shadiest dell, under the pleasantest 
pine. 
How do I know? thou askest. Hymettus is 
turned to a dung-hill. 
That is the sign of the goat, feculent drops 
lie around. 

38 

The whole day like a goat you may browse on 
the leaves thorn-bordered, 
Which now grow on the mount where all the 
Muses once sang ; 
Sprigs you may pluck by the handful in search 
of a savory morsel 
Through all the cotes you may pass, there not 
a panspipe is found. 
Turn then aside to the musical stream sent down 
from the ancients. 
You will find the old mount full of bright 
flowers and sonff. 



212 PBOBSUS EETE0B8US. 

39 

Oft have I strayed from the -path, but always 
returned from my straying; 
Often have I been lost till I discovered myself. 
Fiercely I stormed through the weeds, I fought 
on my path with the brambles, 
Burs I piclied from my coat, thorns I pulled 
out of my flesh. 
But as I wandered alone, not knowing whither I 
tended, 
Flowers I plucked in the fields, fruits too I 
culled from the trees. 
Labyrinthine Hymettus, one must be lost in thy 
windings. 
In thy honeycomb lost, ere of thy sweetness 
he taste. 

40 

Epigrams, wake ! ye seem to have fallen asleep 
or are sleepy ; 
Weave to a bower your forms over the way- 
farer's path. 
As he leaps on the stones and roams through the 
dells of the mountain : 
Then on Hymettus' top lay the bright wreath 
ye have wound. 

41 

What is thy thought as thou stroUest through 
hollows and hills of Hymettus? 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 213 

Life is a honeycomb too, made up of millions 
of cells 
Which are called moments of Time; perchance 
they are utterly empty, 
But may with honey be filled from the sweet 
flowers of earth. 
Every minute to-day is a void little cell, by the 
Gods to thee given. 
Be now busy as bees, with a sweet deed fill the 
cell. 

42 

Now the height of Hymettus I touch, of my 
efforts the highest. 
Always before have I stopped, worn by the 
difficult way. 
From this spot I can see the whole plain stretched 
humbly below me. 
Over whose equal expanse wildly I wandered 
to-day. 
But the view that pleases me most, looking back 
on my pathway, 
Is, I see over the heights which I once reached, 
and then left. 

43 

Now I look out on the world from the top of 
sunny Hymettus ; 
Far below me it lies, all its mad struggle 
unheard, 



214 PEOESUS EETE0E8U8. 

And its bounds on the farthest sea I hold in my 
vision ; 
How does it seem? you inquire. Look in 
these epigrams here. 
Hundreds of mirrors I place them, always re- 
turning one image ; 
Though the facets be small, each will reflect 
the full form. 

44 

Overlaid with the gold of the sun is the top of 
the mountain, 
To those treasures I wend, shunning mad Eros 
the while; 
There is the softest caress of the Muse, and the 
pipe of the shepherd, 
Soothing the wound of the heart in the repose 
of the hills. 
But I soon shall return, again I shall love, I 
know it ; 
The sole freedom I have is to be thrall of the 
God. 

45 

Tell me what ails thee, O friend? Art mortal, 

hast surely the heart-ache ; 
Then go with me to-day, yonder are heights in 

the sun ; 
Bathe the still-ebbing wound of thy heart in the 

quiet of hill-tops, 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 215 

There alone thou canst be with the great 
Healer, the God. 

46 

Yesterday green was the mountain, but to-day it 
is hoary ; 
Snow has fallen above, covered its temples 
with grey ; 
Yesterday thou wert a youth upspringing in 
bloom to the heavens. 
Ah, to-day thou art old, gone through thy time 
at a bound. 
See how age is barely divided from youth by a 
snow-storm. 
Crushed into one wild night all of thy years are 
a dream. 

47 

Chill is the wind that bears me along toward 
snowy Hymettus, 
The lone shepherd now comes down from the 
mount with his flocks. 
He has put up his panspipe, snow has palsied his 
fingers, 
Flowers no longer will bloom, springing above 
the rude rock 
Into the sunlight ; every bee has fled from the 
hill-side ; 
Poesy freezes to-day ; Poet too shivers along. 



216 PB0BSU8 BETR0BSU8. 

48 

Round the top of the mountain are whirling the 
flakes of the snow-storm, 
While below in the plain softly are playing 
the beams ; 
Darkly Hymeltus doth muffle his head in his 
wind-woven mantle, 
Lying serene on her couch Parthenon still has 
the sun. 

49 

^schylus saw yon sea when he spoke of its num- 
berless laughter ; 
Now its face you behold sparkling with 
millions of smiles 

Merrily racing each other in sport to the Isthmian 
race-course, 
The great games of the God still they keep up 
at his shore. 

But look deep in the water and watch its laughing 
reflection, 

' There the Olympian world dimples with smiles 
in the waves. 

50 

Look at this cairn, the monument built by others 
before me 
Right on the top of the mount, far overlooking 
the vale, 



EFIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 217 

Till the glancing victorious sea, whose flutter of 
wavelets 
Plays round Salamis still paeans of warriors of 
old. 
Touch with thine eye the great heart of the sea 
in the distance, 
Thou its deep beating wilt feel as if a battle 
were there. 

51 

Clear are the lines of this mountain, like to the 
forms of the sculptor, 
And transparent the air softly embracing its 
curves ; 
Up here I stand, not a soul in the plain there 
below can behold me. 
Still in Greek sunshine I stand, that is my only 
reward. 

52 

Why were the sides of this mountain, when they 
were rolled into ridges, 
Fixed by the hand of the God just at their 
tenderest swell? 
Look, you will see the reason. There the broad 
folds of the ancients 
Sculptured over its slant sweep with their trail 
in the plain. 



218 PB0B8U8 BETBOBSUS. 

53 

This book of epigrams, what shall I call it? A 
handful of pebbles 
Gathered in my ascent from the rough side of 
the mount. 
And that writing I scratch on all of them? That 
is my versemark ; 
With some faith thou must try, if the device 
thou wilt reajd. 

54 

Here are my stones to the cairn upreared by my 
dear predecessors, 
Whose great names can be read, writ on the 
tablets of rock; 
On the pile I throw down my pebbles, each one 
is scribbled 
With some legend faint, visible scarce to the 
crowd. 
Still my mark on them will hereafter be always 
deciphered 
By a few cliuibers; to-day leave me this 
comfort at least. 

55 

Shepherds were piping and calling to-day all over 
the mountain. 
Far asunder they were, no one his fellow could 
see ; 



EPIGRAMMATIC VOYAGE. 219 

Still each heard and answered the other, in words 

far-resounding, 

Which in harmonious waves played through 

the tortuous dells. 

In my own native speech I endeavored to give 

them an answer. 

Set to the music I heard there on the pastoral 

heights. 

56 

See the shepherd who leans on yon bush, I 

happen to know him ; 

Clothes are the skins of his flock, rude is the 

staff in his hand ; 

Plain is his speech, but the word bears in it some 

image of nature. 

And if he strike up a song, clear it will flow 

from his heart. 

Ears which hear his music, eyes which pierce his 

mantle. 

Find the man within, find too the beautiful 

soul. 

57 

Up ! the snow has fallen to-day and covered 
Hymettus, 
See how he shimmers aloft next to the clouds 
of the sky I 
Now we must go and behold him once more in 
new crystalline drapery 
That falls over his sides, like the white folds of 
the Gods. 



220 PEOBSUS BETB0BSU8. 

58 

Shaggy capote of the shepherd is snowy with 
fleeces of cloudland, 
There he stands mid his herd, white as the 
sheep that he drives; 
But just look at the goat, the black goat, to a 
fleece now whitened, 
Yet with a ray of the sun he will again be a 
goat. 

59 

*' High-toned society I cannot find in your epi- 
grams ; bless me, 
What a vulgar set ! shepherds, and goats, and 
yourself." 
Humble we are, I confess, although, if you scan 
us more closely, 
You will behold what is, not is pretending to 
be. 

60 

Once I met a small bee in my walk on the top of 
Hymettus; 
On a bare rock he sat, as I bent over his seat. 
What ! is it truth or delusion ? From stones ex- 
tractest thou honey 
Famed of old as to-day, delicate drop of the 
world ? 
Friend, I hail thee ! fly not away, I gladly would 
know thee : 



EPiaBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 221 

Teach me how sweetness to draw out of the 
heart of the rock. 

61 

Here the old cloister is lying, now fallen to ruin 
and romance, 
Quiet it rests in the vale where meditation once 
dwelt; 
So the cloister is passing the way of the temple 
and column, 
In it no longer is heard prayer ascending on 
high. 
But the Nymph is still here, and she will remain 
here forever, 
Laughing out of this spring, as it leaps down 
the fresh stones. 

62 

Over the fountain the layers of rock rise up in 
graceful disorder, 
Temple built by the Nymphs in a wild fanciful 
play 
For those youths whose worship was sport and 
whose sport was a worship ; 
Here by the cloister it lies, just the same tem= 
pie of old. 
This is a seat of the Nymphs, and there in the 
rocks are grimaces 
Which they in mockery make mocking the 
vanishing monks. 



222 PB0B8US BETB0B8U8, 

63 

How it may be with thee on this spot, O reader, 
I know not, 
But as for me I rejoice, seeing the joy of this 
fount 
And of these rocks still filled with the happy re- 
minders of fable ; 
In these ruinous walls too I rejoice — let them 
fall. 

64 

O Pindarus, one finds in the golden strands of 
thy network, 
Intricate yet full of grace, all the sweet music 
of forms — 
Grecian youths, as they strove in the games or 
leapt in the race course, 
As in the contest or dance wound they fair 
shapes to a hymn. 

B5 

Fervid, O high-worded bard, is thy worship of 
youthful Apollo, 
God of wisdom and song blended in music to 
one ; 
God of all the high harmonies, both the inner and 
outer ; 
Let me too him revere, softly attuned to his 
strain. 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 223 

Hark! he hath a deep power which sets the 
full soul in vibration, 
To some melody pure that is beyond our own 
selves ; 
But when the God has withdrawn his touches of 
innermost music, 
Back to the earth we fall into unresonant 
clay. 

Give me thy melody, give me thy theme, both 
flowing together. 
Word is one with the thought, form is the 
same as the soul ; 
Legend transparently bears in the flow of thy 
music its moral, 
Ever the mode thou dost sing one is with what 
thou dost sing. 

67 

Theban eagle, now thou hast shown me where is 
the summit 
Of the culture of Greece, long by me sought 
with much toil; 
Harmony is its whole name, deep-woven through 
cunningest measures. 
All of whose strands intertwine into one gar- 
ment of song. 



224 PB0B8U8 BETBOBSUS. 

68 

Still to-day you can see the white folds of the 
antique peplos, 
As they fall down the limbs, rounded and full, 
of the maid; 
And the man you behold as he strides in white 
tunic of linen. 
Showing the shapely turns which are our body's 
own song. 
Look at yon form, and know why marble was 
taken by sculpture 
To express the high deed done by the Great 
Man or God. 

69 

Even in Hellas the good and the bad oft balance 
each other ; 
Love I the old in the new, hate I the new in 
the old. 
Pleasant the song of the larks as they trill in the 
old Attic meadows. 
Hateful the sound of the gun, modern intruder 
in Greece. 
Off fly the larks, on the air float shreds of 
melodies ancient, 
Clear ancestral refrains, sung every day in this 
field. 
Over my head in a strife with the breeze is 
whizzing the bullet, 



EPIOBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 225 

Gun and powder and ball, why do you ravage 

this air? 
Your sharp music I know the chiefest note of 

our era, 
Still I shall follow the larks back from the new 

to the old. 

70 

Wings I attach in the sun to my words, bright 
butterfly flappers. 
That to each flower they flit over the slant of 
the mount ; 
Often not more do they bear on their breath 
than a pin-point of honey ; 
Reader, out of the word thou the sweet drop 
must express. 

71 

Look ! on this side Parthenon lies, on that side 
Hymettus, 
If thou canst hear with the eye, both of them 
chime to one note; 
The clear temple doth echo along all the lines of 
the mountain. 
And the mountain of stone throbs into temples 
unbuilt. 

72 

Helius leans now before me upon the round ridge 
of Hymettus, 

15 



226 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

Just for a moment he rests ere he mount up in 
the skies. 
Why doth he gaze so intently across to yon hil- 
lock behind me? 
There the Parthenon lies lit to a blaze in his 
glance. 
Golden the bridge that he builds in the air from 
summit to temple, 
Over the radiant span flit all the forms of the 
Gods. 
Under this bridge of his beams I walk in the 
shade of the valley, 
Slowly the bright structure breaks, now it doth 
fall round my head. 

73 

Eound this mountain encircles the day, the sea- 
son, the lifetime ; 
Butterfly, bee, and man act out their deed on 
its breast. 
Of its sweetness thou mayest be able to suck up 
a mouthful. 
If thou a butterfly art, seeking the food of a 
day. 
But if truly a bee thou art, thou wilt gather a 
hiveful, 
Or a lifeful thou wilt, if thou art truly a 
man. 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 227 

74 

Satirist Hornet his poison don't bear in his 
tongue nor his forehead, 
Nature has hinted her raind by the mere place 
of his sting. 

75 

Hornets are reared on Hymettus, I saw the yel- 
low-ringed body, 
Poison will poison distill from the pure heart 
of the flower. 
In my wrath I struck with my hat at the daring 
intruder ; 
This was the voice : Have a care lest thou a 
hornet be too. 

76 

Cast an ocean of brine on one little beam of 
Apollo, 
Still it will glow as before, dance on the en- 
vious surge ; 
Such is merit, O friend. Though calumny 
darken its lustre. 
It will not be put out, even will beam on the 
foe. 

77 

Yonder is Athens, it seemeth as if from this 
height I can touch it ; 
Boldly I walk down the hill when a deep gorge 
cuts me oflf; 



228 PR0BSU8 BETBOBSUS. 

Painfully then I return and try from the top a 
new pathway, 
Till I by brambles am stopped ever in view of 
the town. 
Now I go back and spy out the stores of Hymet- 
tus before me, 
Hearing its song on my way, soon I to Athens 
am come. 

78 

This is the Pnyx, you say, whence spoke the 
great orator Attic, 
Still may be heard from these stones eloquent 
echoes of old ; 
This broad platform hewn from the rock is a 
voice adamantine 
That through the ages resounds warning the 
races of men. 
Gone are the dwellings and temples and men that 
crowded this summit, 
But the voice has remained — hark ! it is speak- 
ing to-day. 

79 

Only behold this stone of the Pnyx, altogether 
the greatest. 
Though the others are large, larger than else- 
where, you think. 

Here it rests in the wall, it was raised by the 
hand of a Titan, 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 229 

To outlast all the strokes in the great fall of a 
world. 
Let us call it Demosthenes, rock of perdurable 
grandeur, 
Orator now on his stand, uttering still his great 
word. 

80 

Mid these ruins, O wanderer, this should be thy 
first lesson. 
To be able to hear speech without lips, without 
words ; 
Study the language of stones, put together their 
old broken story. 
Hear their destroyer speak too, smiting them 
down in his wrath. 

81 

Athens, I fear thee ; thou wert the favorite 
haunt of the virgin. 
Who has given thee name, who thy chief 
temple indwelt ; 
Stern and severe is thy glance, O Pallas, thou 
maid of cool reason. 
Knowledge and art are thy gifts, scorning the 
light play of Love. 
Venus is hateful to thee, and all the lorn lover's 
caprices. 
This I must not forget, as I thy favor implore. 
Still on this mountain you often can hear the soft 
trill of panspipe. 



230 PBOESUS BETB0B8US 

Notes of it rise on the air tuning the slope to 

its strain, 
One they are with the sunshine over the tran- 

quilest ridges, 
One with the hum of the bee, one with the 

beat of the heart. 

82 

The cicada, long famous for music, I saw on a 
grass-blade, 
He was the last of his race fallen on days of 
decline; 
The green freshness of Spring had changed to 
the dullness of Autumn, 
Scarce could he balance his wings, and he no 
longer could sing. 
But his shape he retained, and all of his ancient 
armor, 
A tall helmet he wore mounted by double high 
crests ; 
Long was the fall of his robe which covered his 
tapering body. 
Draping a hint of the Gods: graceful were 
bended his limbs. 
Here in view of the city, whose eye is the fane 
of Athena, 
Antique shadows he casts, dim like the old in 
the new. 
But, O Anacreon, let him now sing as he sang 
for thy measures, 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 231 

A new life he will have, echoing notes of thy 
lyre. 

83 

Ah, discordant the sound I now hear in a dale of 
Hymettus ! 
'Tis the Byzantine twang that from yon chapel 
doth come. 
That is surely the sound which killed old Pan in 
this mountain. 
And it would any God, daily to hear such a 
snarl. 

84 

Many a sound is hateful — the grating of hinges 
in dungeons, 
And the clanking of chains, also the human 
shrill screech ; 
But the clanking, the grating, the screeching is 
sweetest of music 
To the screed of the priest mid the Greek hills 
on a morn. 

85 

Who were my visitors as I reposed on the hill 
of Colonus? 
Butterflies, birds and bees came with their 
message of joy. 
But here cometh a blind old man who is led by a 
maiden. 
What does he say? What she? Look in the 
poet of old. 



232 PBOBSUS BETE0B8US, 

CEdipus, thou art the man who always appears 
to the stranger, 
Here thou didst wander in life, here thou wert 
ta'en to the Gods. 

86 

Still you may note the olive and grape, the 
plantain and cypress, 
Through the Athenian vale, roaming the river 
along ; 
Still at noon you may see old Cephissus rise 
out his stream-bed, 
Secretly water the trees that are enwreathing 
his banks ; 
And the gracefullest nymphs are still frisking 
amid yonder thicket. 
Now from this height you may watch all of 
their frolicsome sport. 

87 

Sophocles, this was thy hill on whose summit 

transpired the wonders 
Which thou didst see in old age, but with a 

vision beyond. 
Round the hill is woven a garland of silvery 

olives. 
Playing to-day in the breeze, pretty reminders 

of song. 
Peering amid the grey foliage gleams the bare 

top of Colonus, 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 233 

Like a poetical brow, aged, though fresh in its 

joy. 

Gone are thy temples and shrines, O hillock; 
gone are thy Gods too, 
Still thou by Nature art crowned with the 
green wreath of the bard. 

88 

What did you see, O stranger, to-day on the hill 
of the Muses, 
Seeking the joyous old haunts where the sweet 
Sisters once dwelt ? — 
Goats, I saw nothing but goats that were brows- 
ing the thyme of the hill-slopes, 
And there was nothing beside, which could be 
seen with the eye. 
As I sat and watched their ungraceful and dirty 
caprices, 
Soon the danger I felt there of becoming a 
goat. 

89 

Long I sought on that hill for a trace of some 
musical shepherd. 
Tuning his pipe in the sun to the soft trill of 
his heart ; 
Flocks I sought for calmly reposing in patches 
of sunshine. 
Maidens I looked for in vain, sporting with 
lambs on the rocks. 



234 PB0BSU8 BETB0B8U8. 

All the hill-side was bare, not a bush, not a 
flower or thyme-stalk. 
Whose mild fragrance was once sweetly dis- 
tilled into verse. 
Pan is dead, the shepherd and shepherdess thence 
have vanished. 
Sheep are now left to themselves till they be 
shorn for their fleece. 

90 

From the Nine Sisters this hill is named ; they 
dwelt on its summit, 
And from the height they attuned all the hori- 
zon around 
To their music; unto its cadences rose up the 
temples, 
Choruses fair tripped forth, swaying the body 
to song ; 
The high forms of the Gods and Goddesses step- 
ped out of marble, 
Speech was an ecstasy sweet, flowing to meas- 
ures of time ; 
All the deeds of the doers, all the words of the 
speakers 
Were one strain of the Muse singing in Athens 
of old. 

91 

Up, companion, climb to the top of the hill of 
the Muses, 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 235 

TheDce you will note in the plain city and 

temple and sea ; 
And if you look long enough, you will witness 

the birth of Athena 
Rising up with her town cast in the mold of 

her brain. 

92 

From this top where we lie, let us view yon 
theater's ruin. 
Carefully build it anew, which all the Muses 
once built, 
When they had on this hill their temple of far- 
glancing glory, 
And inspired the voice which is still heard in 
those walls. 
Piece together their fragments, list to the notes 
that they echo, 
You will hear a vast rhythm setting to music 
the world. 

93 

Athens, many thy violet hills, and all of them 
sacred I 
Each one, however small, raises its head to the 
skies 
High as Olympus ; take, O friend, the next path 
of the ascent ; 
It will lead to the top where is the home of a 
God. 



236 PB0B8US BKTBOBSUS. 



94 



O the shy Muses, I wonder if they to my love 
give requital ! 
Mauy adorers they have, few are invited to 
stay; 
Some get a glance or a smile, and some get a 
word from their heart-depths, 
But the most are dismissed — suitors who loiter 
outside. 
Scarce in a century will the coy Muse fall in love 
with a mortal, 
Breathing her soul into his, making one pas- 
sionate life 
That must break into song and tune all the world 
to its keynote, 
When we see Nature herself joining her voice 
to the choir. 
Could I be sure I were loved as much as I love 
ye, O Sisters ! 
Epigrams never would cease welling up into 
the day. 
Give me the meed of my love back, be thou a 
Muse or maiden. 
Give the reciprocal kiss, lips are made two to 
be one. 

95 

Parthenon, mid thy deep joy thou showest a still 
deeper sorrow. 
Fate has smitten thee too, as it smote heroes 
of old. 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE. 237 

Yes, I catch thy sweet smile which gladdens the 
sea and the valley, 
But I behold, too, the wound which has been 
struck in thy side. 
Thou like GEdipus, Hercules, thou the Greek 
temple, art tragic, 
Ruin heroic thou art, beautiful just in thy 
fall. 
O the eternal delight that sings out thy fragments 
of marble ! 
O the eternal pain from the pierced heart of 
thy stones! 

96 

Here, at thy shrine, O Pan, near the stream of 
little Ilissus, 
Gratefully to thee I give all of the wanderer's 
arms: 
Namely, this faithful staff which stoutly sup- 
ported my footsteps 
Where are the mountain haunts trod by the 
shepherd alone; 
And these shoes too I offer, now torn by the rocks 
of the hillside 
As I sought thy retreat mid the deep forest 
and glen. 
By their aid and by thine, O Pan, I have ended 
my journey. 
Take now the signs of my art, grant me, I 
pray thee, repose. 



Maid of Athens. 

In the bed of Ilissus is lying Calirrhoe limpid, 
Heaving her watery breast still to the God of 
the stream; 
Thither I wander to hear from the Nymph her 
melodies ancient, 
Fain would I catch her sweet note sung to the 
fablers of old. 
As I sat on a stone and looked at the gush of the 
fountain. 
Came with Junonian tread maiden of figure 
antique ; 
White was the ripple of folds as they flowed 
down the lines of her body. 
Broken to waves at each step just as she 
bended the knee. 
She was bearing an amphora ancient of grace- 
fulest model, 

(238) 



EPIQBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 239 

Wherein to pour the fresh drink throbbed from 
the heart of the earth ; 
With the cup in her hand she was dipping it out 
of the fountain, 
Filling the jar at her side with a bright sparkle 
of pearls ; 
To me she handed a draught from the flood of 
Calirrhoe's vintage, 
While the wealth of her eyes, spendthrift, she 
poured on the ground. 
Nor would she look at me even while daintily 
doing me service. 
Ever she kept at her work busily whirling the 
cup; 
How I longed to speak but a word — she forbade 
me in silence, 
Still I read what she said written in movement 
and form. 
Forward she leaned her lithe body that turned 
to the outline of Graces, 
High she swung her white arm bared to the 
shoulder of dress. 
Cupful she whirled after cupful into the mouth 
of the vessel. 
While her melodious breath uttered a sons: to 
the rhythm. 
As it softly was flowing from motion of hand 
and of body, 
So that attuned to one note seemed both her 
form and her lips. 



240 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

O the beautiful concord when song is a bodily 
movement, 
And the movement a song hymned from the 
heart in each act ! 
See now the dead earthen amphora wet with 
Callirrhoe's finger ! 
Shapes spring out of its clay born at a touch 
of her hand ; 
What was a dull, burnt side of a jar, quite life- 
less and vacant, 
Now with action is filled, action of figures 
divine ; 
Pallas I see rise up at her city, in bearing 
majestic. 
To a mortal she speaks, son of Laertes I 
deem. 
Then is pictured a maid, Nausicaa, near to a 
fountain. 
To her Ulysses appears, wanderer mighty of 
old, 
And he prays her to lead him the way to the 
wonderful city. 
Home of the beautiful forms, work too itself 
of the Gods. 
Far he has come on his journey from mythical 
lands by the sunset, 
Seeking his earliest hearth, where once his 
spirit was born ; 
'« Maiden," I cried, «« Oh stay till I read what is 
told in that picture, 



EPIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE. 241 

It is speaking to me, telling the word of my 
fate. 
I must know what it says, must spell its oracular 
letters 
That have been made by the strokes moved 
from the hand of a God. 
List ! all its persons I hear, they address me as 
an acquaintance ; 
To their group I belong, though I stand out in 
the air. 
They have come to me here by the side of Calir- 
rhoe's mirror, 
Thou art their guide to this spot, answer them 
now in thy speech !" 
Not a word she said in reply, yet in motion 
responsive 
Softly she uttered her heart taking the jar in 
her arms. 
Look, the maiden has raised to her head that 
amphora ancient, 
There it stands a high crown, wreathed with 
clear shapes of old Time ; 
She, with life in her movement, is giving her 
life to its figures. 
She is one of them there, though she be here 
too to-day. 
See the old and the new now vanishing into each 
other, 
Interplaying their forms down from Olympus 
to Earth, 

16 



242 PBOBSUS BETBOBSUS. 

And from the Earth to Olympus again, in the sport 
of their beauty, 
Her they are giving their grace, them she is 
giving her breath. 
Sketched on the air she is moving both into and 
out of that picture, 
Dropped from the outlines of art into the 
movement of life. 
Who can distinguish which is the modern, which 
is the ancient? 
Which is the person of stone? Which is the 
being with breath? 
Is it the draught of thy stream that cunningly 
changes my vision ? 
Or thy mirror perchance calmly reflecting a 
world? 
Such are the forms that rise in thy fountain, 
Cahrrhoe limpid, 
Thy clear waters still show all the old shapes 
of the bard, 
And transfigure them into the youngest look of 
the living. 
See ! I am thirsty again ! Give me a drink of 
thy spring. 



Hymn to Pallas. 

Pallas, O Pallas of Athens, I stroll through thy 
beautiful teraple, 
Which has beeu built in this land doubly by 
Nature and Art, 
Fair white Parthenon yonder is not thy sole 
structure, O Goddess, 
Attica all is thy house, reared to the upper- 
most hills. 
See ! this Athenian landscape is ever a glorious 
poem, 
Which from each spot you can read all the long 
day in your walk. 
Kadiant verses are gleaming like falchions aloft on 
the summits. 
Mighty heroical lines lighten through opaline 
skies, 
Heaving hexameters roll from the rise and the 
fall of the sea swell, 

(243) 



244 PB0BSU8 BETBOBSUS. 

Tender love epigrams lisp cadences low in be- 
tween. 
Plain and mountain and sea are a garland of 
splendor majestic, 
Circling the head of old Time laid in fair 
Attica's lap; 
Foliage, herd, and ship make a line of a musical 
measure 
Moving with harmonies sweet into one cast of 
the eye. 
O the transfusion of sound ! the transfiguration 
of vision ! 
Every object of sense flashes to letters of light ; 
Brightest of scripture is writ on the earth with a 
pencil of sunbeams, 
And the white folds of the clouds drop down 
unrolling a scroll ; 
Many a line of old Homer is cut on the burnished 
horizon, 
Words of the Muse built of stars nightly you 
read in the sky. 
Strains of high singers flow still from the liquid 
Ionian heavens. 
Out of each fountain are heard songs set with 
fancies of old. 
Weeds and thorns and brambles are hung with 
emeralds precious. 
Pebbles begin underfoot suddenly turning to 
pearls ; 



EFIGBAMMATIC VOYAGE, 245 

Wisdom, the grave old sage, is diamonded over 
and over 
As he walks through the grove, bearing the 
thouo'ht of the world. 
Ancient Pentelicus yonder is speaking a word to 
the sculptor, 
Rising to statue from stone, filling the dome 
of the sky ; 
Happy Hymettus transfuses to song all the dew 
of his honev, 
As he sweeps to the plain from the clear home 
of the Gods. 
Yet this Nature is but the outermost garb of the 
poem. 
Which the body doth grace hinting the glories 
within, 
Nobly suggesting the soul in the refluent folds of 
green drapery, 
As it flowing through vales rolls to the tops of 
the hills. 
Only look up ; you will see, wherever you are, 
the fair temple 
Which in the center is placed, raying out 
streams from its height: 
Fountain perennial, welling above an Athenian 
hillock, 
Thence overflowing Greek hills into the stream 
of the world ; 
Waves it is sending of translucent smiles in 
eternal processions, 



246 PBOBSUS RETBOBSUS. 

Thousands of years it has filled all of this 
plain with its joy 
Up to the mountainous rim that lies on the earth 
like a garland, 
And embosoms the fane in a long happy 
caress. 
Cincture of pillars by distance becomes a gay 
zone of Greek maidens, 
Festively dressed in v\^hite folds, reaching each 
other the hand. 
See the fair chorus of columns now dancing 
around on the summit, 
The full joy of the feast flows to the ends of 
the plain. 
Speaking afar to the wayfarer lonely, evangels 
of beauty. 
Moving to measures of song under melodious 
skies. 
Thither, O wanderer, haste from the vale, from 
the mountain most distant. 
Haste on the wings of the ship over the 
islanded seas. 
Aught is reaching for thee far out of the heart 
of the temple. 
Fair as the youth of the world, wise as the old 
age of Time, 
Drawing thee up the Acropolis bound in fleet 
fetters of sunbeams. 
Till thou art set on its top from the wide 
world's other side ; 



EPIGBAMMATIG VOYAGE, 247 

Pass now into the temple, thou wilt behold the 
high Goddess, 
Where she sits on her throne, seen by her 
worshiper true ; 
She will show thee her beauty, she will tell thee 
her wisdom. 
She is the landscape's heart, heart of the poem 
is she* 



NOTE. 

It has seemed to me that a little note appended to 
the present book and telling a few facts about it, 
would be welcome to those readers who are most 
interested in it and in the series of works of which it 
forms a part. 

The first fact which I would like to make known is 
that the book, at the date of the present writing 
(April, 1892), is about fourteen years from the period 
of its origin. It began to live in me and to start into 
expression during the spring of 1878, which I passed 
at Rome, viewing palaces, ruins, statues, and all the 
remains of antiquity, even down to small fragments 
of ancient marble. The old world had received from 
Time a blow that had shivered it to pieces, still these 
pieces would come together for the patient inquirer, 
and deliver with distinctness their message. Every 
day would bring some new utterance, broken per- 
chance, yet suggesting, if not completely voicing, the 
antique spirit. 

It was for me a time of supreme happiness, of re- 
construction within and without — a Roman spring in 
the soul. I was driven off by the hot weather to the 
north, but in the fall I returned, and saw again with 
delight my ancient acquaintances. 

But the first intoxication of joy had begun to wane, 
I could not help feeling that there was something else 
behind and beyond Rome, especially antique Rome, as 
we still see it to-day. Looked into more closety, all 
the Roman stones — temples, statues, reliefs, even the 
triumphal arches and the Coliseum — were pointing 
to another land and people as their origin. Many 
works of antiquity very plainly spoke of captivity and 
servitude. The Roman conqueror subjected not 

(249) 



250 NOTE. 

merely the Greek State, but Greek Art, which thus 
became a slave in Rome. Hence a reaction came over 
me, and with it an intense longing to go back, or, better, 
to go forward, to Hellas. The necessity was strong, 
indeed imperative, and so again I started toward the 
rising sun. 

From these two experiences the reader will derive 
the two portions of the present book, Ecce Roma and 
Epigrammatic Voyage — the stay at Rome and the 
transition to Hellas. 

Such is, in general, the origin of these utterances in 
verse. They began to spring up when 1 touched 
classic soil; they moved of themselves into their 
measure without any conscious violence on my part ; 
the view of nature, the sight of the objects, the voice 
of the old world still speaking in monuments and in 
language were the first instigators, and must bear the 
chief blame. Such a deed I had not thought of before- 
hand ; I had never tried a classical meter till land, sea, 
mountain and sky gave the beat which could then be 
heard vibrating through all ancient art and literature. 

Still, I ought to add that not all of these poems 
(there are nearly two hundred and fifty, short and 
long) were finished or even written down on classical 
soil. For years after my return home the mood would 
come back at intervals, and would insist upon expres- 
sion in the present metrical form, a very solitary note 
in English song. At such times whatever was old, was 
often touched up afresh, and even new, hitherto uncon- 
scious phases of the Greco-Roman journey would shoot 
into some unexpectc'd image or thought. As late as 
tvYO years ago, the antique mood revived with no little 
tyranny, and for a ivhile drove out every other kind of 
work, especially that which had to do with the present. 
So the old road must be traveled over again, along 
which fresh flowers are always blooming. This book, 
accordingly, is made up of many journeyings into 
classic lands, yet is but one journey ; each time has 
left its trace upon the poems, which ought thereby not 
to lose but to reach their unity and completeness. 



NOTE. 251 

But life is short and the traveler at last must rest 
at his inn. The period has arrived when the present 
book must be closed and gotten rid of by its author, 
who has finally to send forth the child of his brain 
with a hope in his heart and a blessing on his lips. It is 
to take its place in the series of works and of long- 
continued attempts which have sought to regain the 
ancient Hellenic inheritance, and to transmit the same 
to our Western world. Classical studies seem just at 
the present to be passing through an eclipse. But in 
some form the spirit of that antiqvie life must be recov- 
ered and renewed, being an integral element in the 
development of man from barbarism to culture, and 
remaining still to-day the most beautiful manifestation 
that has yet appeared on our planet, since it is just the 
manifestation of beauty. 

The immediate view of nature and antiquity in 
Greece and Italy of to-day — the climate, the land- 
scape, the monuments, the works of art — called forth 
primarily what is here written. Still there were cer- 
tain literary influences and associations, ancient and 
modern, which played into the mood, and which 
I, looking back through all these years, can discern 
with some degree of clearness. The three chief ones 
I shall point out to my reader, who may possibly 
desire at some time to make an excursion on the same 
road. 

1. The first of these literary influences both in time 
and degree was the Greek Anthology. I had never 
looked into this vast collection of verses which image 
Hellenic life for more than a thousand years in its 
most subtle aspects, till I reached Rome, where some 
allusion or quotation led me to get the small pocket 
edition of Tauchnitz, which then became my handbook 
and guide to the ancient world, nor is it wholly laid 
aside yet. In all my wanderings through Italy and 
Greece it was my chosen companion, whom I would 
especially recommend to my successors as the most 
delightful and best informed cicerone in Heathendom. 

Very naturally there was a strong desire to make 



252 NOTE, 

the epigrams of the Anthology speak my mother- 
tongue and yet have them retain their Greek mood 
and drapery. The first and the indispensable requisite 
was that they should keep as far as possible their 
ancient meter. The usual English translations of the 
Greek epigram were iambic, in rhymed couplets 
or quatrains. I can truly say, I could not endure 
them. Even when they were faithful to the sense 
and poetic in language, the classic fragrance and 
form were all gone, for me at least. On the soil of 
England or America they will have to be tolerated, for 
that tremendous all-devouring Anglo-Saxon individu- 
ality which threatens to swallow the whole world, as- 
serts itself also in versification and is inclined to permit 
only its own to be. German translations of Greek 
poetry, and specially of the Anthology, are far more 
sympathetic on the whole, though often rough and 
formal. 

Hence arose the attempt to preserve in English 
the metrical form of the Greek epigram, as far as a 
language using accent instead of quantity would per- 
mit. Any other kind of verse will not answer, what- 
ever be thought of the present attempt. ' ' English 
ears are not used to this measure " it is said ; English 
ears will yet have to become used to it, and let Classic 
numbers live in the English tongue. So much by way 
of prophecy, which has as yet, be it observed, no fixed 
date of fulfillment. 

This book, however, is not a translation, nor is it 
an imitation or even reproduction simply. It narrates 
my own thoughts and experiences ; it is as modern as 
I am, in spite of its antique form ; it emphatically be- 
longs to the present, and, whatever be its merit or 
want of merit, it could have been written only by a 
man belonging to the last half of the 19th century. 
An author has to put his own time and his own per- 
sonality into his work. To try to write a Greek 
tragedy or a Latin ode just as Sophocles or Horace 
would have written it, is, I hold, a puerile business, 
and is, besides, quite impossible. Still antique forms 



NOTE. 253 

may be employed, but the matter, the content must be 
modern. In the old the new must appear all the 
brighter and truer for its vase. Of this complete in- 
terfusion and happy marriage between the antique and 
modern in poetry there is a supreme example, which 
the reader will note as the second literary influence 
observable in the present book. 

2. This is Goethe. Of all the men of Teutonic 
blood who have visited Italy, he is the one who has 
shown the most feeling for the old world and greatest 
mastery over its form of expression, yet without 
losing himself in mere classical imitation. In his 
Iphigenia, in his Roman Elegies, and in his Epigrams 
after the Greek manner- he employs the antique form, 
yet it is alive, it belongs to the present also ; he shows 
himself the most ancient as well as the most modern 
man, the truly universal poet. 

Goethe is, therefore, the genius who has made the 
antique live again, and has thus surpassed antiquity 
itself. Not, however, by simply going back to the 
old ages does he accomplish this, but by living wholly 
in his own age. Sometimes he is called an old pagan ; 
such he is, but he is also a youth of to-day, full of the 
pulse-beat of his time, even in his classical transfor- 
mations. All great poets have the same trait ; they are 
the fii'st and the last, a kind of Alpha and Omega 
of human spirit. 

3. Another influence was that of the Latin elegiac 
poets. Greece stirred up even the old practical Roman 
to verse-maMng, not naturally his vocation. I was 
particularly attracted to Propertius, who has given a 
Greco-Roman setting of Art and Mythology to his love 
for Cynthia, and who undoubtedly influenced Goethe. 

Still I shall have to confess that the Latin poets do 
not mean much to me poetically. They had to trans- 
fuse the elusive Hellenic spirit into an idiom cognate 
to Greek indeed, but in some respects harder to break 
into a supple instrument of poetic freedom than Ger- 
man or English. The imitation and formalism one 
always feels in Latin poetry, even when it is subtle 



254 NOTE. 

and elegant. For me Goethe stands nearer the heart 
of the Hellenic world than any Roman poet, and utters 
it in a more vital way. Stillj in modern Rome the old 
heathen poets of Rome ought to be read and under- 
stood anew. 

All these different literary utterances, however, the 
Greek, the Roman, the German, are but transforma- 
tions of one and the same thing, that which is called 
the antique spirit, though it is quite as modern as it 
is ancient. They all strike one key-note at bottom, 
whatever be the place, time or tongue. Moreover the 
same key-note can be heard to-day in classic lands by 
the sympathetic ear attuned to nature and art, which 
must be the fountain-head of any genuine poetic 
expression. Not the written word of the past but that 
which lies behind the written word and creates it, is 
the mighty demiurge who is always transforming 
himself into new shapes and whose re-incarnations in 
Time, by means of the letter set down in writing, give 
us what we call Literature. 

To the above explanatory remarks I may add that 
Delphic Days, though finished long before the present 
book with its two parts, properly follows it and con- 
stitutes the third and final part of this classical 
journey. 



'-:,-iK>f'>.*:v-" '.■/Vij' 



J ■«■•» < ^w- 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

016 225 811 4 






